Summary: Button, button, who's got the button? ~eg~ Okay, for real. Um, it's poker night at the loft but the final game of the evening turns out to have much higher stakes than anyone imagined. Rated PG-13 for bad words and tense situations.

Spoilers: Post-TSbyBS, "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" spoiler for The Waiting Room.

Disclaimers: Standard they-aren't-mine-they-just-come-out-to-play-now-and-then disclaimers apply. No money, first born sons, maps to buried treasure, black painted falcons or other assorted and valuable items have changed hands. Anything not already belonging to someone else is mine, all mine!

Beta readers: Much gratitude and large helpings of virtual chocolate and gourmet coffee to peregin anna for her nagging for more and the butt-kicking that kept me from drop-kicking the story out the window to begin with, and to Hephaistos for, among other things, reminding me that Wuss!Blair is *not* canon (which led indirectly to Ballistic!Blair in part...well, never mind. <g>) Anyway, thank you, ladies, for your faithful service and assistance in filling in plot holes and picking grammar nits--and the occaisional "EWwwww! I *like* it!" Special thanks to TAE for her patience with pesky questions--and for trapping that final little plot bunny about poker cards and casinos for me.

(The surname Nkemontoh is pronounced "Kih-mone-toh" (All the o's are long vowel sounds.))

The lavender sky outside the loft was ebbing softly into indigo as Blair snagged a few M&M's from the serving bowl and tossed them into his mouth. Critically, he studied the placement of the other snacks on the bar, seeking the best spot for the candy--at least, the spot where Blair could be guaranteed to be the one eating most, if not all, the M&M's.

The sunset fading across the Sound marked the end to a day as close to perfect as Blair could remember. He'd slept in, and then when he finally did drag out of bed, the only thing on his 'to do' list involved lying around in the sun-touched loft with the latest issues of National Geographic and Smithsonian. He hadn't had this much spare time since he was...well, not for a long time. This afternoon had marked his first official appearance with Major Crimes intramural football squad, the highlight of their game being Blair snagging Jim's "Hail, Mary" pass and scoring the winning touchdown against the squad from Vice. In celebration of their triumph, Jim had paid for Blair to stuff himself at Chang's Mongolian Grill, and now he could look forward to an evening of poker with the guys from Major Crimes. What more could a guy ask for?

Well, maybe a little more hair, but hey, at least his own short locks were growing out. In the months since he'd graduated from the Academy, his hair had already grown out almost to his jawline.

Tucking a few stray stands behind one ear, Blair found himself grinning at the thought of fleecing his fellow detectives yet again--talk about your easy marks! Still grinning, he finally found the proper place for the candy bowl, and slid it carefully across the kitchen island--to a point directly behind the two large bags of tortilla chips. With a sideways glance to be sure Jim was still busy at the other end of the kitchen, he shifted the two cans of Reddi Cheese out of the way and pulled the corn chips over beside the other chips. Still chewing contentedly, he surveyed his camouflage work briefly. Then, swallowing his purloined candy, he swiped one hand across his Hawaiian print shirt, and picked up the thread of conversation he had abandoned when the candy captured his attention.

"Look, Jim, I'm telling you, all the guy needs is someone to believe in him. Someone who sees the potential, the man he *could* be, not--"

"The hard-ass criminal wannabe he really is," Jim finished the sentence for his roommate, stepping up beside him and setting the salsa out; one large bowl of medium salsa, and a smaller open jar of mild. Impeccably casual in khakis and a close-fitting, dark blue t-shirt, Jim shot a stern glance at Blair before moving the corn chips aside so the bowl of candy was plainly visible. Blair smiled innocently, then waited until Jim's back was turned before shifting the candy again, this time concealing it amongst the bags of already popped microwaved popcorn sitting on the other end of the island next to the range.

"Jim, man, come on! I can't believe you're that cynical." Satisfied for the moment with his new camouflage job, Blair strode over to the dining table. He infinitesimally straightened a couple of chairs, then checked to be sure the boxes of poker chips were all in place before turning back toward his roommate. "Look, Derek just needs a chance. His folks have been AWOL since he was two years old; the guy was raised by a grandma who couldn't deal with a high-maintenance child, so she let him run wild. There've been *no* positive male role models in his life at all. The cards were stacked against him, and I'm just trying to even the odds out a bit here. You understand that, man, it's what the Mentors Program was all about! Shoot, you're one of the ones who really championed it when they first started bringing it online!"

Blair returned to the kitchen, where his roommate was kneeling on the floor by the fridge, stocking the shelves with beer and pop from the opened cartons at his feet. The Sentinel was carefully shifting the bottles and cans he'd placed in the refrigerator earlier to the fore, then stashing the newer, warmer, drinks behind them. The dishwasher was just about done cycling through the hot wash Jim had insisted on to sanitize Blair's tupperware, pulled from the refrigerator and cleaned out earlier in the day to make room for more drinks. Blair snatched a couple more M&M's, and quickly chewed and swallowed. "Look, you know it's had *great* success in Texas keeping at risk kids from joining gangs and--"

"I know the statistics, Chief. You're preaching to the choir now." Jim broke down the cardboard case he'd just emptied of Coca Cola and laid it neatly on the floor behind him. Then he pulled a carton of Full Sail Ale over and broke it open carefully along the perforated end.

"So what is it then?" Blair leaned back against the kitchen island, instinctively checking to see that no burners were on before settling his hands out on either side of the range top. "Ever since Derek was assigned as my Mentoree, you've been down in the mouth about the whole thing. Why can't you believe that I can make a difference in this kid's life, man?"

"It's not you, Chief, it's not you at all." Jim's voice was muffled by the refrigerator for a moment as he dug inside, bottles clanking as he moved them forward. "I *know* you could make a difference in just about anybody's life. What I object to is that the Mentor's program was not meant to be part of the plea bargaining process. It was never intended to be used to reduce *deserved* sentences for juvenile offenders, just to help the ones who were sitting on the fence make better choices."

"Derek is hardly a hardened offender, Jim. He's only got one charge against him--"

"Only one that the DA could make stick," Jim interrupted, from the depths of the refrigerator again. Blair ignored him, repeating himself for emphasis.

"Only *one* charge against him and that's from a year ago. None of the others were proven and he had alibis for most of them anyway. He's pulled his grades up, made most of his AA meetings, kept his school attendance up, met all the terms of his parole--"

"Parole that never should have been given to him, given that he slammed a tire iron down on that other boy's head with deadly force." Jim surfaced from the depths of the refrigerator, and looked pointedly at Blair, before repeating, "Deadly force, Chief. You know the Nkemontoh kid didn't come out of his coma for three weeks." "Jim, it was just one of those teenage macho shoving matches that got out of control; you know how high the emotions can get at a high school game--"

"Chief, how many high school shoving matches end with a kid in a coma?" Blue eyes met blue, and Blair, silent for once, gave ground first. Jim didn't say anything for a moment, then returned to his resettlement efforts in the fridge. "A six foot plus 16-year-old against a skinny 15-year-old? Galen Nkemontoh was no threat to him; there was no need for Derek to reach for a weapon of any kind, let alone one that nearly killed the other person."

Blair didn't say anything to that either, and Jim's face peered around the door after a long moment, their gazes meeting again. This time Jim looked away, down at the two bottles of Ale he still held.

"Look, Blair, I appreciate what you're trying to do, and I think you're a great mentor. You're willing to believe the best about people more often than not, and most of the time you're right. This time, though, with Derek, it's just...I don't know, call it cop instinct or Sentinel instinct even, I *don't* think Derek wants to be a 'good boy.' Sometimes you just can't change the tiger's stripes."

"The leopard's spots, Jim."

"Hunh?" Jim stashed the last of the Full Sail Ale and pushed the carton aside. He reached for the one remaining case of beer, Black Butte Porter, just as a knock sounded at the door.

"The Leopard's spots, the actual saying is 'A leopard can't change its spots'."

Jim shrugged, and Blair, more than willing to abandon the fruitless discussion for the umpteenth time in the last three months, hustled over to open the door.

"Rafe, man, what a cute little piggy bank! Hey, is that Babe?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jim blew his nose wearily, and after dabbing gently at the edges of each nostril added the used tissue to the growing pile on the coffee table. Resisting the urge to gag on the odor of cigars as Simon appeared in front of him, he looked up and met his Captain's concerned gaze.

"You gonna be all right, Jim?"

He had to concentrate to hear Simon over the pounding of his own heart, but Jim nodded anyway. Trying unsuccessfully to ignore the tingling in his hands, he yanked another tissue out of the box. Damn these allergies, these senses. Sometimes they were more trouble than it was worth, and tonight was definitely one of those times. Only 10 o'clock and poker night was already over and done with. Of course, he hadn't missed the relief that had flashed across both Brown's and Rafe's faces when Blair had declared the evening at an end, over the rising cacophony of Jim's sneezing. Thanks to Blair's poker skills neither man had left with even half of the stake they'd come with. Except for Simon, goodbyes had been quick, and the other members of Major Crimes were already gone.

Whatever answer Jim would have made Simon was lost in another sneeze. The belt of Simon's trenchcoat flapped as his hands came to rest on his hips, and Simon shook his head as he stared down at the Sentinel.

"I'll take that as a 'yes', and in that case I leave you in *Detective* Sandburg's capable hands."

Jim nodded, fought another sneeze unsuccessfully, and hoped the sneezing kept his Guide and roommate from noticing the way his hands were shaking every time he used a tissue. Blair appeared at Simon's side, a set of keys clinking as he held them up for inspection.

"Looks like Rafe lost more than his shirt tonight. Hope he left a window open, 'cause I can guarantee Megan's not gonna want to make two trips across town in one night."

"Ah-choo!" His 'n' his matching frowns stared down at Jim, but he shook his head and waved them both off.

"I'b bine. G'won, ged hobe."

Simon and Blair traded "Yeah, right" looks before Simon turned toward the door, Blair following in his wake. Jim fought the urge to stick his finger down his throat and see if he could scratch his eustachian tubes.

"You know, Sandburg," Simon said absentmindedly, stopping by the door, patting his chest in an automatic search for a cigar before shooting a guilty look at Jim's watering eyes and dropping his hand instead to point at the shorter man, "if it was Jim who cleaned me out, I could at least blame it on those senses of his. But when it's you cleaning me out..." he paused, shaking his head ruefully.

Blair grinned as he reached for the door knob, Rafe's keys clinking in his other hand. Jim winced as the clinking reverbererated in his ears, and focused instead on the sound of Blair's voice.

"Well, you know, Incacha did pass the way of the Shaman on to me, Simon." At his boss's confused frown, Blair grinned and waggled his eyebrows and the fingers of his free hand at the man. "You know, shamans, second sight, spirit visions..." He opened the door for Simon, who was glaring disgustedly at him now. Jim chuckled, then sneezed again.

"ONE detective with paranormal senses is all I want, Sandburg, I do NOT want two. Have I made myself *perfectly* clear, DETECTIVE Sandburg?" Widening his eyes until the whites showed starkly around the dark brown pupils, Simon glowered down from his 6'4" height at the smaller man.

Blair's grin grew even bigger as he stood up straight and clicked his heels together, the hand that had held the doorknob snapping up to his forehead in what Jim had to admit was a passable imitation of a military salute. Gee, Blair's Academy training stuck in one area, at least.

"Sir, yes, SIR!" Blair snapped, staring straight ahead, and both men saw the smile Simon fought off. Jim couldn't identify the emotion that skittered briefly in his roommate's eyes before Blair's straight face threatened to crack into an answering grin. Simon shook his finger under Blair's nose.

"Good, and don't you forget it, either!" he growled. "Goodnight, *Detective* Sandburg, Jim." Simon headed out the door, sketching a half salute on his way.

Blair waited until Simon disappeared into the elevator before relaxing his stance and closing the loft door with a sigh and a chuckle. He jerked one thumb over his shoulder in the direction Simon had taken.

"You know, I think he likes saying that. *Detective* Sandburg!" With a wide grin, Blair did a passable imitation of Simon's growl, and Jim smiled in return. Then Rafe's keys clanked against his in the basket before Blair breezed back over to the card table, and Jim spent the next several seconds fighting the shudders that accompanied the sound, before the battle ended in another sneeze.

Once the shivers had subsided, he dabbed at his nose with yet another tissue and tried to figure out just what had triggered tonight's attack. Maybe Simon's new cigars had been the catalyst, but he wasn't sure. Between Megan and Rafe it could have been battling hair goo, or the new cologne Henri's wife had given him, or the ink on the damn cards for all he knew. Shaking his head, Jim flexed his fingers and willed the tingling sensation away before he pushed up from the couch and gathered his pile of tissues. Blair was eyeing him covertly as he finished stacking his winnings and started collecting poker chips into neat piles. Jim sighed, bit back another sneeze, and shook his head at Sandburg.

"I said I was fibe, and I'b be fibe." The sneeze that followed that reassurance was the loudest one yet, and Blair rolled his eyes. Jim sighed, and stopped by the table on the way to the kitchen garbage, his hands full of used tissue. "Look, I'b sorry I ruined the eben--"

"You didn't ruin anything, Jim, I'd already cleaned all those guys out anyway. They didn't have anything left to lose, man!" Blair stopped what he was doing and stared straight at Jim. "And neither did you. Man, what was with you tonight? Twenty-five bucks on a pair of queens?" Staring at Jim in disbelief, Blair shook his head.

"Teborary i'sabity, Chief . Sobetibes it just feels right." At least the pounding beat of his own heart was lessening, no longer overriding all the other sounds in the loft. Belatedly he remembered to concentrate on what Blair was saying.

"...feels right? Jim, since when has a pair of ladies felt so right that you'd stake $25 and a week's worth of dishes on it?" Blair's eyebrows were practically to his hairline, and Jim looked away, stared down instead at the soiled tissue in his hands. The only response he could offer was to shake his head in resignation. He had *no* idea what had gotten into him at all, only that he had damn well been convinced that he was gonna take the pot on that hand, and a few others he'd subsequently lost. The thought that he was so broke Sandburg might wind up spending his winnings on groceries for the next week or so was small consolation. The tingling in Jim's fingers seemed to get worse as he stared at his hands, and he tried--and failed--again to find the dial that would turn this particular sensation down. He jumped as Blair touched his elbow, and looked over to meet his friend's intense scrutiny.

"Jim, are you sure you don't know what set this off?" Jim shook his head again, and Blair sighed, returning to his piles of chips. "Well, whatever it is, we are gonna find out, man. You haven't been this bad for--"

"Si'ce Daobi's last bisit." Jim shrugged to hide the shudders that shook him up and down his spine with each click and clatter of the chips Blair was stacking, and headed into the kitchen. Making an effort to speak clearly, he continued, "I had eberyt'ing dialed down to dormal for the party, and I don--" The fetid smell that wafted out of the garbage can as he opened the cabinet caught him by surprise, and he gagged. Used tissues scattered over the kitchen floor as he ran, barely making it in time for the contents of his stomach to land in the toilet and not all over the bathroom. Several long minutes later, Jim looked up to find Blair standing in the bathroom door, a worried frown on his face.

"Jim--"

"I'b all right, the smell was--would you bind carrying out that garbage todight? Leave the rest of it, we can clean it ub in the morning, but that sbell--"

"Sure. I'll do it right now. Then I want you to lie down and we're gonna get those dials down, okay?" Blair was gone before Jim had time to nod.

He did have time to brush his teeth and wash his face off while Blair took care of the garbage. Wiping his face with a towel, he stared grimly at the red-nosed apparition in the mirror.

"You had just better get things ubber codtrol and keeb them there!" he threatened himself, and then winced as he heard the street level door squeak with Blair's return. Dropping the towel neatly over the rack, he headed out into the main room. Scooting Blair's winnings over, Jim started gathering the cards. Suddenly his hands weren't just tingling, they were burning, and the glare of the lights in the loft blinded him as he jerked away from the table. Closing his eyes, a cacophony of cars and doors opening and closing and voices and the electronic squeal of a computer mating with a modem assaulted him, and then the smells...Jim doubled over, grabbing at his stomach as bile rose again in his mouth at the smell of rancid hamburger in the dumpster, three floors down and someone had tossed a dirty diaper in there too, and the manager of Collette's had a new Subaru that leaked more oil everyday...

Bracing himself against a chair, he wretched helplessly onto the floor by the table. The odor of his own bile mingled with the myriad other odors and then the noises and then there was just too much data to catalog, far more input than the Sentinel could ever hope to process and it wouldn't stop, wouldn't slow down--

Staggering to his feet, Jim reeled across the room, burning hands going first to his ears and then his eyes and then it was his clothing, the soft cotton of his shirt now transformed into thousands of sharp ends and bits of dust, poking him, shredding his skin raw. He had the offending garment half ripped off when a flaming brand fastened around his upper arm and someone screamed his name. Jim barely recognized the hoarse cry that followed as his own, but he yanked his arm away from the burning pain. Staggering away from the heat, the pounding and thumping that came with the scream, he stumbled into something unyielding, then fell, hard, onto the floor. Curling into a ball, Jim gave up fighting and, clenching fists and teeth, simply tried to ride out the sensations assaulting from every direction, every pore, every nerve ending.

Another noise came now over the others, a sound as of running water, babbling, refreshing, but in the maelstrom of his sensory overload Jim couldn't focus on it long enough to find any control, no chance to fight his way free of the assault he was under. The sound continued, though, running on and over his tormented nerves in a gently soothing stream, but then it moved away and he strove to follow it, to attach himself to it, but it was fading with each rasping breath he drew into his lungs. Jim whimpered then, and almost screamed at the booming sound of his weakness, and then he was drowning in his own raucous heartbeat, in the rushing flood of blood through his veins, the dust motes on the floor and in the air digging into his skin and the stench of cat urine in the alley...

After an eternity in hell, there was a blessed surcease of noise, and as his overloaded mind slowly worked on processing that thought, focused inch by slow inch on that refuge, something cool and soft and smooth floated down over him. The burning brand returned, with a mate this time, touching him, pushing him, pulling at the remains of his shirt, but always the heat was followed with the refreshing smoothness. He let himself be maneuvered so that the cool feel of...silk--that was it, silk--enveloped his torso, protecting him from the assault of dust on the floor. Biting his lip to keep from crying out and breaking the soft silence that cocooned his ears now, Jim let himself be sat up and gently pushed back against something.

The relief from at least two sources of sensory input was enough to grant him a modicum of control, and he risked opening his eyes just a bit. The loft was dark, but in the faint light that seeped into the room from the street he could clearly see Blair bending over him, his tropical shirt glowing in the dimness. But more clear to his enhanced vision than the colors of Blair's shirt dancing and rippling in an orgy of reflected light was his roommate's concern.

"Jim?" Blair breathed, and the smell of organic potato chips and stale beer on his breath was overwhelming. Jim jerked his face away, gagging audibly and fighting the urge to vomit as Blair cursed and disappeared. He was gone long enough for Jim to realize he was wrapped in one of his silk sheets, leaning against the yellow chair in the living room. One of his white noise generators hissed contentedly on the floor next to him. Jim closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair, swallowing against the nausea and willing his racing heart to slow as he fought for control of his own senses. Then Blair was back, and this time he wouldn't look Jim in the face, wouldn't talk directly at him, no matter that the smell wafting from his roommate's mouth was now "Tom's All Natural Mint Toothpaste--Made in Maine!"

"Can you find the dials, Jim?" Blair whispered urgently. Jim's eyes closed as he concentrated. It took a minute, but yeah, he had them--barely. He nodded once, shortly, before meeting Blair's gaze. His Guide frowned, then took a deep breath, careful this time to breath it out his nose and not his mouth. "Okay, I'm guessing everything's out of whack here, so we're just gonna start one by one, and get them all down okay? Have you got enough control to try that?"

Closing his eyes against the stabbing headlights in the alley below, swallowing against the nausea, Jim nodded again, once. He didn't know how long it took, but eventually, with Blair's patient coaching, he got all the dials back down--willing everything away but the sound of his Guide's voice and the pounding of his own heart, dialing everything down--way down, with the babbling stream of Sandburg's voice to guide him.

At last, their eyes met in the darkness, and the weariness in his friend's face was obvious to the Sentinel even without the advantage of his hyper eyesight. It was a weariness he shared, and he didn't argue with Blair's next suggestion.

"Jim, I want you to just keep it all dialed down, okay? Keep it all down to one or whatever tonight. Tomorrow, tomorrow man, we are gonna do some serious digging to figure this out." Without hesitating, Jim nodded, and Blair continued. "Okay, let's get you upstairs, all right?"

The Sentinel hated to admit it, but he needed the support the younger man offered him as he struggled to his feet, one hand still clutching the dark blue silk swathed around him. Blair hovered as Jim found his feet and his balance.

"I'm not an invalid, Sandburg," he growled as he stood up fairly straight, and was rewarded with a flashing grin from his roommate.

"Well, you know for someone of your advanced age it's easy to strain things, so I'm just kinda like being careful here."

Jim didn't have the energy left to banter with his roommate, so he settled for glaring at him.

"Payback's a bitch, Sandburg."

Blair laughed and reached for the white noise generator. A loud knock on the door interrupted that motion.

"Whoa, I guess Rafe talked Megan into driving back across town tonight after all. Damn. Are you gonna be all right for a minute? I'll get rid of them as fast as I can, man."

Biting back another retort, Jim nodded and tried to stand up straighter, pulling the sheet off his shoulders and attempting to fold it up a bit as Blair headed for the door, snagging Rafe's keys from the basket as he passed by. With one last glance at Jim, Blair swung the door open.

"Took you long enough, Ra--"

Though tall, dark-haired and good looking enough to leave passing females in a swoon, the young man who shoved his way past Blair into the loft was not Major Crimes' refugee from the pages of GQ. Neither could his three companions be mistaken for the other detectives in the elite group. Slouching through the door behind Derek, dog chains clanking from their pockets and plaid boxers showing around the waist bands of their baggy jeans, were two more teen-age boys and a slip of a girl.

Well, okay, a slut of a girl and two more teenage buffoons, Jim thought, as he took a couple of steps forward, immediately cataloging and dismissing the heavily made up and perfumed girl, her flower tattooed belly button proudly displayed beneath a tight white midriff top with the requisite black bra showing beneath it. He dismissed the skinny blonde boy in the oversized Jags t-shirt along with her. It was hard to take someone seriously who had a ring in his nose and a diamond in his tongue. The third boy, tall, with dark hair, hooded eyes and a deep tan, was definitely more of a threat. Larger than Jim or even Simon, he had the musculature of someone who spent *lots* of time on the weight sets. No body piercing here; the physical temple meant too much to him for that.

But, of them all, Derek was the one who caught and held Jim's attention, standing in the loft between the living area and the kitchen, surveying the room with a predatory gleam in his eye. Jim's hands began to tingle again.

"Hey, Derek, what gives, man?" Blair broke the silence. He shot a confused look at Jim before continuing. "It's, uh...It's kinda late for a visit, man, and I hate to break it to you but the party's over. Come and gone, man." Arms akimbo, Blair grinned and Jim dropped the silk sheet behind him, not really caring if it landed on the chair or the floor. His heart was pounding again, and dammit, he *knew* Derek was up to no good. He tried dialing up his hearing, but was immediately overwhelmed by the sound of six hearts pounding in close proximity. Smell was no good either; whatever cheap perfume the girl had doused herself in was permeating the entire loft. He shook his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose briefly. Damn, and his gun was upstairs, underneath the pillow on his bed. Oh well, this punk and his buddies should be easy enough to take out.

Leaving the loft door open, Blair stayed right behind Derek as he crossed over to the dining room table, ignoring Jim completely.

"You had a party and you didn't invite me, Detective Sandburg? I'm hurt." Derek flicked a finger, knocking over a pile of chips, and then rifled through Sandburg's winnings. "But that's okay, 'cause we brought our own party."

"Hey!"

The cloying chemicals in the girl's perfume were only increasing the feeling that someone had reached under Jim's skin, grabbed all his nerve endings and was twisting them mercilessly. Closing his eyes for a moment he concentrated on pushing the feeling away. But his eyes shot open at Blair's objection, only to see Derek complete a sweep of his arm that scattered most of the poker chips and cards and Blair's winnings over the loft floor. As Blair reached for his arm, Derek grabbed him by the shirt, and with his other hand pulled a large pistol from the cargo pocket of his baggy jeans. Everyone in the room froze as the gun, lengthened by the attached silencer, made contact with the end of Blair's nose as he was jerked up towards the boy. After that first shocked second Jim made it two steps closer to his roommate, only to stop cold as Derek pulled back the hammer.

"He's dead if you take another step, Macho Man." Derek never even looked at Jim, smiling calmly down at Blair.

Blair lifted his hands slowly, and Jm heard his throat working, could see the smaller man trying not to look cross-eyed at the pistol pressing against his nose. Jim glared at Derek, but there wasn't much he could do, not with having to keep fighting the nausea that threatened him with every perfume-laden breath. If he could get his heart to stop pounding, that would help too, but between the fear for his roommate's safety and whatever it was that had triggered his sensory overload in the first place, that didn't seem likely. Blair broke the tense silence. "Hey, Derek, man, you know, this thing's kinda cold. What say you put the gun down and we'll all discuss this like adults?" He leaned back, away from the gun, but Derek followed his motion, keeping the gun against Blair's nose. Jim's fingers twitched and he clenched them into fists as he cursed whatever it was that had set his senses off tonight, that had him off his game when his Guide and partner needed him. He must have moved slightly, because Derek turned his smile towards Jim, dark brown eyes glinting at him from the boy's face, but the humor in those eyes was shadowed by something darker, much more malevolent in intent.

"Sean, you guys see what you can find. There oughta be something here that's worth a little money. I'll just visit with the detectives while you look around." Derek's smile was all gloating, malicious teeth as he nodded his head toward the rest of the room.

Jim flinched at the racket the other boys made as they proceeded to gleefully trash the apartment, but he kept his concentration on Derek and his partner. Books and artifacts flew off shelves, the table and chairs were overturned as the boys moved through the loft. Their racket was accompanied by the girl's slightly hysterical giggling as she knelt on the floor, grabbing at the scattered money and stuffing it into her pockets. She stood and stuffed a few bills into Derek's pocket before following the blonde boy upstairs, and Derek smiled again, directly at Blair, shifting the pistol just a bit so that the circular opening now rested against Blair's cheek, just underneath his left eye.

Watching him, Jim started when he realized the low growling noise he heard was coming from his own throat, at least until he sneezed again.

"Gesundheit, Detective," Derek said and Jim glared at him, mentally calculating the moves to take him out without injuring Blair. There was a delighted shout from upstairs, and Sean with the diamond in his tongue hung over the rail, dangling Jim's handcuffs in the air.

"REAL ones, man, heavy duty police issue!"

"Cool. Bring them here." Derek still didn't move, didn't let the gun slack from its contact with Blair's face, but his gaze flicked over toward Jim. "Moe, come out here and put them on Detective Macho Man over there." Jim tensed, but Derek was pushing the gun into Blair's cheek again. "Just try it, Detective, and your partner here has mush for brains."

The big wrestler came out of Blair's room and, meeting Sean and the girl at the bottom of the stairs, traded the laptop for the cuffs. Smiling as he snapped them open, he walked around the couch and loveseat over behind Jim, followed by the other two. Jim wasn't sure what was worse, the idea of them getting the cuffs on him, or being that close to the source of the raunchy perfume. He sneezed, and before he could say or do anything, Moe was behind him, reaching for his hand, and then Blair was talking again.

"Hey, Derek, look, what's the poin--"

Derek's hand moved, and the blow knocked Blair back, but not quite down. Bracing himself against the overturned table, he lifted a hand to his face, to the bloody gash in his forehead. Derek's eyes gleamed, and for a second he stared at the gun he still held in Blair's face. Blood, Blair's blood, dripped slowly from the pistol butt. Jim lay flat out on the floor, where Moe had simply countered his lunge toward Derek with the inertia of his own weight. There wasn't anything to say, but Jim knew how to look at these punks, knew how to throw the fear of Ellison into them with just his eyes, swearing heavy retribution at them with silent, glacial intensity.

Too bad Derek didn't seem to care.

"Do it again, Macho Man, and he's dead."

Moe kept Jim pinned with his full weight while the blonde boy, Sean, set the laptop down long enough to pull Jim's hands behind his back and cuff them tightly. That done, he stood and reclaimed the laptop before he nodded at Moe and Derek, but Moe didn't move. Ignoring the grating of dust against his bare torso, the burning of the metal ringing his wrists, Jim laid on the floor while Derek captured Blair's attention again, reaching out and grabbing another handful of his shirt before pressing the gun up under Blair's jaw. Blair's eyes widened, but he glared up at Derek.

"Look, Derek--"

"The point, Sandburg, is that there's a lot more fun to be had. You think we came here just to rough up your pretty face and your pretty house? Oh, no, *Detective*, there's much more to the evening's plans. You're coming with us, and we're gonna make history tonight. You know what they're gonna say about us after tonight, man? They're gonna say--"

No. Oh, God, no. From Alex Barnes to Zellar, the bad guys had gotten Blair one too many times, and there was no way this punk and his pathetic groupies were gonna walk out of here with Sandburg while Jim was still alive. No way in hell.

"Why didn't Derek take the real pig when he had the chance?" Jim's interruption fell into a stunned silence, and Derek turned slowly from where he still menaced Sandburg to stare at him. Jim smiled with all the warmth of January's snow pack on Mt. Rainier as Derek shoved Blair down onto the floor, then stalked over to the Sentinel. Jim continued to taunt the young man as Moe pulled him to his feet. "They'll wonder where his juevos went, messing with a punk rookie when he could have had the big pig himself. Maybe Derek's got no juevos, if he couldn't take on a veteran cop--"

Derek's blow stopped Jim's commentary, but Jim simply smiled. The slippery velvet trickle of blood down his cheek matched his Guide's. Blair was climbing to his feet by the table, and his eyes were huge, but Jim ignored them, ignored the warning he could see his friend telegraphing. Whatever he had to do, these guys were *not* taking Blair with them.

"What's the matter, Derek? Afraid of me? Rather take on a punk rookie than a real, live cop?"

Frowning, Blair took a step forward, one bloody hand out, reaching for Derek.

"Look, Derek, man, this isn't you, you don't have to--"

"Oh, it's me, all right, Detective." Derek's eyes were locked with Jim's, and Jim kept the challenge there in the forefront of his gaze as he stared back at the boy. Bloodlust, that's what he'd smelled on Derek all this time, and he let his sense of smell expand, banishing the raunchy perfume forever in favor of the adrenaline, the expectation, the pumped up smell pouring off the boy in front of him.

Derek's gaze grew wary for a moment as he considered Jim, and the Sentinel allowed his smile to grow, mercilessly mocking the boy, egging him on. His gaze never wavered, everyone, his partner, the teenager holding his arms, the one behind him and the decorative wench, all ignored in favor of Derek.

"Look, guys, this alpha male stuff is, like, so *un*necessary! Let's just tone it down and back it off a few notches, all right?" His voice hard, Blair stepped up beside Derek, and put one hand out, but he wasn't trying to placate anybody. "Everybody needs to just chill out a bit here." Blair tried again to catch Jim's eye, but Jim ignored him. It had gone too far for that, much too far, and right now as far as the Sentinel was concerned all that mattered was getting the threat out of here and leaving his Guide safely behind.

Blair rolled his eyes at Jim, then turned and waved towards Sean and the girl. "Look, you missed the cell phone in the pocket of my jacket. Take it, take the laptop, the cd's, whatever. We've got no objections. Just take it all and we'll call it even, okay?"

No one said anything for a moment, and then a jaguar's scream cut through the heavy silence in the loft, and Jim blinked. Blair started as if he heard it too, and for a brief instant Sentinel and Guide's gazes locked.

And with that brief distraction, neither cop was prepared for Derek's next move. In one smooth motion, Derek shifted his weapon, turning as he did so that the gun he now held by the barrel swung up and caught Blair on the side of his head, hard, just above his ear. Blair dropped like a rock into a puddle of limbs and color and short curls on the floor. Jim's own cry of rage was drowned in the roar of blood rushing in his ears, and he lunged toward Derek again. But with his hands cuffed behind him there was nothing he could do as Moe rode him down to the floor one more time and Jim lay beneath him, helpless, while Derek stood over Blair's limp form, laughing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Damn. The door was open when you got here?"

"Yeah, it was open."

"God, what a mess. There's no way to tell what's missing, not in all this."

Blair tried to gather his thoughts and himself into some semblance of order, willing the throbbing beat in his head to the background as best he could. The voices had been circling around the rim of the dark well that was his current residence for some time before he could get enough beyond the pain to take note of them. One particular voice, dark and smooth and deep, finally rolled over the edge of the well and fell down into his cognizance.

"Nothing missing--nothing other than Jim, that is. And where the hell is that ambulance?"

Blair played with the sounds for a minute, enjoying the cadence, the rhythm. It took coming a bit further out of the dark haze of unconsciousness before he realized that the pleasing noises were words as well. Then it took a minute more to string them into a sentence that made sense, and by that time there were more words lapping over the edge and cascading down into his awareness.

"Maybe Jim took off after whoever it was did this." Young, male, and worried: Blair categorized this speaker as he strung the words together, and a name floated up into his mind: Rafe.

"Jim would never leave willingly if Sandy was down. Never. And especially not without calling it in." Female, this time, softer, the words closer to him as he reached for them, above him somehow. The voice continued, "That tanker fire at the docks, Captain? There were a number of casualties on the scene, and I'm sure emergency services are still trying to deal with that."

Megan, his mind supplied the name, and put Simon in place of "Captain" when someone beside him grunted in reply to her comments. Blair used the names to lever himself closer to the outside world these voices inhabited, talking around him and the pain in his head.

Pushing the dull beat of pain behind him, Blair slowly surfaced. There were more voices, several more, but he concentrated on these closest to him, forcing himself to string their words together. Then the image of Jim, sprawled out on the floor beneath a dark-haired boy while his hands were yanked behind him and handcuffed by another boy, blonde, green-eyed, fell in the midst of everything. With a loud gasp, Blair came all the way awake, struggling to sit up. Much to many voices' consternation he pushed at the hands trying to hold him down on the floor, slapping at the grip that refused to let go of his shoulder, the hand trying to keep something cold and wet on his head.

"Blair!" the dark, deep voice bellowed as a hand grabbed his wrist, and everyone froze, including Blair. Opening his eyes he found Simon's face a scant foot from his own, one dark hand out to gently but firmly circle Blair's wrist. Blair's own hand had wrapped around Megan's wrist in a crushing grip, but she still held a bloody dishtowel towards his head. Behind Simon, Rafe hovered, and beyond him were two uniformed officers. Forensics techs, Blair categorized them in the split second before everyone started talking at once. Simon's second bellow calmed things, and in the sudden silence Megan rocked back on her heels so Blair could sit up.

He was still at the loft, sitting on the floor, that floor covered now with his own and Jim's belongings. Automatically reaching for the source of the throbbing pain in his head, his hand came away wet with blood. Blair stared at it for a moment, before looking around him. Couch and chairs were overturned, the table was upended, and food and poker chips had been scattered everywhere, along with books, cd's, dishes... Numbly, Blair accepted the dishtowel from Megan, wiping his hand then putting his elbow on his knee and resting his head against that same hand. Shoving away the shreds of darkness lurking at the edge of his vision, he took in the disastrous state of the room without speaking, before realizing that there was one face missing, one voice that he should have heard above all the others.

"Jim?" He asked, and as Blair's gaze came round to the captain squatted on the floor beside him, Simon shook his head.

"We were hoping you could tell us what happened."

The thin wail of a siren slowly built behind Simon's voice, and Blair closed his eyes again, kicked angrily at the scattered M&M's and poker chips close to his foot. His mistake, his foolishness, his insistence on being right had done this. Damn! After everything that went down with Alex Barnes you'd think he'd have learned to listen to his Sentinel when he said something wasn't right, when Jim started acting funny about someone. But no, Blair had to shrug it off, tell Jim he was getting cold, cynical. No matter that Jim was a Sentinel and Sentinels had these amazing senses and they knew things and had instincts, not to mention Jim's instincts as a soldier and a cop and...

Belatedly, Blair realized that their assembled friends and colleagues were still waiting for his answer, and that if Derek really had taken Jim time was of the essence. Damn, why did the man have to speak up? Why couldn't he have let things be, not been so heroic, just let...right. And then he wouldn't be Jim Ellison, Cop of the Year and Sentinel of the great city, cool guy and loyal friend who was maybe a little close-minded at times, but hey, who wasn't? It was just more politically correct to be close-minded about things Jim held dear; liberals, conservatives, everyone in between was close-minded about something or other. Everyone had their sacred cows.

Including Blair Sandburg, B.S., M.A., now permanently ABD, lately cum Detective, and don't forget the Guide gig that got him onto this roller coaster in the first place.

Yeah. Right. Some Guide he'd turned out to be: almost four years of practice and he had yet to get things right.

"Derek Mansfield," he said, then repeated it, for effect, to see how it felt to have his stupidity repeated in front of the rest of the group. "Derek Mansfield. The low-life juvee I'm supposed to be mentoring into something resembling a higher life form. He came here to get me, for some reason. Jim challenged him, and I guess they took him instead."

He didn't have to have brushed Jim's concerns about Derek off so completely; they could have discussed it, worked together on this, found a solution together. But no, Blair had to get on his high horse, his religious high horse, and prove that the Academy hadn't changed him, prove that he could still be the bleeding heart do-gooder with the best of them. And now Jim was paying the price for Blair proving he hadn't changed, proving that Detective Sandburg hadn't checked *his* humanity at the door, not yet.

"They?" It took Blair a minute to realize that Simon had repeated his question twice. He opened his eyes, met Simon's concerned gaze, saw the paramedics coming through the door, followed by a more uniformed officers. Megan moved aside and as the paramedic knelt beside Blair he saw Rafe in the kitchen, cell phone open and talking rapidly, excitedly into it. Blair caught Henri's name before he decided he didn't want to listen anymore. That was great, just great. Let's advertise Detective Sandburg's idiocy to the rest of the Major Crimes unit. He couldn't blame Rafe, he knew that it was only because--as members of a closed society--they cared deeply about their own, knew that he was included in that closed society, had been for quite some time, but it still rankled that his bad judgement--

His introspection was sidetracked by the paramedics. The short chubby one was opening his ubiquitous orange equipment box while the other man, slimmer and darker, snapped on rubber gloves and began to examine Blair. Wincing away from the light shining in his eyes, Blair looked at Simon again. The tall Captain still squatted next to him, an immovable bulk the EMT's simply had to work around.

"We thought it was Rafe and Megan, come for his keys." He sucked in a gasp as the paramedic probed the gash on his forehead, then closed his eyes as the other one reached for his arm and fastened the blood pressure cuff around it. "We were talking, Jim wasn't paying attention to much. I opened the door without checking, so they just pushed in. Four of them, three guys and some girl. Derek called the blonde guy 'Sean,' and the big wrestler type was 'Moe.' Like I said, they were going to ransack the place and take me, but Jim challenged Derek, so I guess they took him instead." He laughed, breathlessly. "Moe was huge, man, huge like in a cartoon or something. Jim didn't have a chance against him, not the way--" Suddenly aware of ears that didn't need to hear the rest of this, Blair cut off what he was going to say, taking refuge in the busyness of the paramedics.

"Blair, were Jim's allergies still bothering him?" Simon's voice was careful.

Eyes still closed, Blair nodded, not trusting himself to speak as the image of Jim, ripping at his shirt and screaming aloud in pain at Blair's touch, replayed itself across his mind.

No one said anything, but that had to be Simon's sigh he heard.

The Velcro was loud as the paramedic released his arm from the cuff. The second EMT pushed his hair aside to probe at the bump on the left side of his head, where the ache started and spread throughout his entire skull. Blair gritted his teeth and refused to make a sound as the large lump was probed, none too gently. He was *not* going to the hospital, he was gonna get out there and find Jim and Derek and--

"Blair, can you identify them?"

His eyes snapped open, and Simon's gaze had moved from simple concern to downright worried. Damn. He did not want to buck Simon about the hospital, not at all.

"Yeah, give me a chance and I can pick all three of the sonsabitches and the wench out for you."

Simon looked from Blair to the paramedic, who frowned.

"He's got a nasty gash and a large bump. Possible concussion; he should rest until he can get to his own doctor. If he can't get to his own doctor we'll take him in and run a CT scan at the hospital."

"Whoa, hey, wait a minute there. I am *not* going to the hospital. That's like so not where I'm going." Several people took breath to argue with him, but Blair tuned them all out and found and focused on the one person he knew mattered the most. Sitting on his heels in the midst of the debris of Derek's visit, Simon watched Blair, his expression unreadable, while the EMT continued to recite all the reasons why Blair should go to the hospital right now--or at least get checked out by his own doctor before doing anything even remotely strenuous.

"Mr. Sandburg, are you listening to me? You really need to--"

Blair waved the pudgy man off, and leaned forward to catch Simon by the arm. Ignoring the paramedics, he shifted himself close in to Simon, and hissed, "Man, you *know* I have got to go with you! Jim's--" A quick scan around the loft showed Megan and Rafe busy with the uniformed officers, all sorting through the debris with gloved hands, and Blair locked his gaze on Simon's face again. "Jim's 'allergies', man, they're out of control! Look, he-he was puking in the toilet after you left because the smell of the *garbage* got to him, Simon! We have to get out there and find him and I *have* to be with you! You know it, man, you know it!" After a beat, he added, "Sir."

Simon stared expressionlessly at him for a minute longer, then, sighed and nodded.

"Just because I know it doesn't mean I have to like it, Sandburg." With one last measuring look at Sandburg, he turned to the EMT. "I'll keep an eye on him, and someone will see to it that he gets to his doctor later today."

The sandy-haired EMT frowned, but Simon was already getting to his feet, heading for the stairs. Blair was the next target of the man's displeasure but he was prepared for that.

"Just give me whatever it is I have to sign." Ignoring the disapproving frown, Blair pushed himself to his feet and felt inordinately proud of one Detective Sandburg for not falling over or fainting once he was upright. Pudgy sighed and reached for his clipboard. The second EMT, taller and dark-haired, approached with a couple of butterfly bandages, and by the time he had those applied to the gash on Blair's forehead, his partner had the paperwork ready. Blair scribbled his signature, and grabbed the copy the man shoved at him, before turning his back on both men. Megan appeared, holding a glass of water and some aspirin out toward him.

"I thought this might come in handy." She watched as Blair nodded his thanks and took the aspirin. "Guess it's a good thing I didn't want to have to explain why Rafe spent the night at my apartment, even if he would have been sleeping on my couch," she said wryly. Blair stared at her for a minute, then nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess it was."

She took the empty glass from him, and headed over to drop it on the kitchen island. Rafe was still supervising the forensics techs over on the other side of the loft. Blair headed into his room to survey the damage. He squatted on the floor beside the largest pile of stuff, digging his shoulder holster out of the mess. It settled into place with moves that still felt foreign. Right, maybe, but not yet familiar, nor comfortable. His gun was still tucked inside the specially made Inuit wolf mask Jim had given him when he graduated from the Academy. Despite the mask being tossed on the floor with the rest of his belongings, the pistol had stayed put.

Simon came into the room, sweeping the damage with a practiced eye. Blair looked up from checking the load in his gun before settling it into the holster. The flash of approval in the darker man's eyes was unmistakable. Simon hefted the gun he held in one hand up.

"Looks like they missed Jim's gun, too," he said, before tucking it into the back waistband of his pants. Hopefully they'd get to hand it over to Jim, soon.

Simon waited in the door, his eyes once more sweeping Blair's room, cataloging the damage: books and artifacts knocked off shelves, the desk drawers emptied onto the floor, bedclothes ripped off the bed and piled on top of everything.

"They either didn't think to look for the guns, or didn't find them," he said, patting his shirt pocket for a cigar. "That and the pattern of destruction we're looking at here leads me to believe we're dealing with amateurs. They didn't really know what they were doing, besides getting off on tearing things up a bit." Half a cigar appeared in his hands, and it was immediately clenched between Simon's teeth.

Blair found his badge wallet on the floor beside his bed and shoved it into a back pocket. Simon still stood in the door, watching, but Blair wasn't ready to stand up and face the fact he didn't know what to do next, not yet. Behind the larger man, out in the main room, the hubbub continued, flashbulbs going wild as the evidence of his idiocy was documented. Simon took the cigar from his teeth, and studied it for a minute then looked up at Blair again. The big man's gaze was oddly gentle.

"Blair, do you have any idea where they might have taken Jim?"

Another few seconds of searching through the rubble netted him one slightly stretched out hair band. Sitting back on his heels, Blair pulled his hair back into an abbreviated ponytail and snapped the elastic band around it before he answered Simon.

"No. Not off hand. Derek's grandmother doesn't seem to pay much attention to his comings and goings, but I doubt they'd take Jim there. He's a wrestler, lifts weights at the school a lot...I'm not sure, but those places at least give us a star--"

Simon's cell phone cut into his speculation, and Blair found himself holding the Inuit mask, turning it over and over in his hands as Simon pulled his phone out. What did he really know about Derek? That he played a mean game of one on one, seemed to enjoy classic acid rock--

"WHAT? Are you sure?" Simon whirled around, stepping back into the hallway between Blair's room and the kitchen where he nailed Megan and Rafe with his patented "I AM THE CAPTAIN" stare. "Did either of you notice if Ellison's truck was missing when you drove up?" Both were shaking their heads when Blair shoved past Simon, heading for the key basket. He pulled Rafe's keys out, and then his own. The basket was empty.

"Jim's keys are missing." Blair's gaze met Simon's across the room, and Simon raised the cell phone to his mouth again. "Henri? Got a license plate yet on those vehicles?" He listened, then nodded. "That's Jim's truck all right. Okay, stay with him, you got that? Do NOT lose that truck. Call it in, and get someone else to pick up the other car if it takes off. Use your phone, not the radio; we don't want to take a chance they've turned Jim's radio on. As soon as you've done that, call me back with your location. We're on our way."

Simon snapped the phone shut with a flourish. Every eye in the room was on him.

"Henri was almost sideswiped by two cars drag racing out on the northern end of Cascade Highway. One of them was Jim's truck."

Blair had his coat on and was out the door before Simon finished saying, "Sandburg, you're with me."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jim Ellison was in hell. An accumulated effluvium of stale sweat, booze, and old sex permeated the canopy covered bed of the small truck he'd been tossed into an eternity ago. Despite the miasma, the Sentinel breathed desperately through his nose, afraid to open his mouth for fear the twin tastes of bile and his own blood would have his rebellious stomach retching again. He'd probably already regurgitated both kneecaps and maybe a few toenails onto the soiled material beneath him. When he found a stray moment to think straight, any small instant that wasn't consumed in fighting his senses, in frantically trying to make the damn dials work, Jim tried not to worry about Blair, still in a limp huddle on the floor of the loft the last sight Jim had had of him.

Squealing tires cut through his thoughts, adding to the noise blaring from the speakers at the back of the cab to exacerbate his misery. Jim's bones resonated along with the thin aluminum body of the truck with every beat of that so-called music. Damn, who'd have thought Metallica would have been one of the bands from his era that survived to screw up another generation's music appreciation skills.

Shifting once again on the scratchy, synthetic blanket that he could never seem to avoid, no matter where he was thrown by the motion of the truck, Jim swallowed against another urge to vomit. Nothing like lying on steel wool to prove a man's sensitive side. His entire torso was raw from the constant motion against the blanket. There wasn't any position he landed in or found for himself that didn't put more pressure on his already straining arms, or pull his ankles any closer to his hips than they already were. Not that it did him much good, Eagle scout the boy may not have been, but someone, somewhere, had taught Derek Mansfield how to hogtie a pig, but good.

The truck went up on two wheels as it screeched around another corner, and Jim slid over and slammed into the side of the bed again, his face landing in puddle of his own vomitus. Inching away from the pool, Jim sighed, and closed his eyes and tried once again to turn all the dials down. His sight was about the only sense that wasn't out of control, thanks to the dark safety glass in the canopy windows. Though that made it almost certain that Jim could expect no help from passing strangers; no one was gonna accidently see him in the back of the truck, nope, not even Sandburg had luck like that.

Sandburg...stuck underneath Moe on the floor of the loft after Derek had pistol-whipped Blair, Jim had zoned on the scent of his Guide's blood. He came out of it only when Derek's large class ring made intimate contact with his upper lip. Jim had shaken off the zone to the taste of his own blood, and found himself being held upright in Moe's grip.

"What's the matter, Detective," Derek had sneered, "You epileptic or something?" "Something," Jim had answered, staring coldly at the boy as he found his feet and shrugged off Moe's help. As long as they were focused on him, Blair was ignored. Jim was fine with that. After a moment Derek had looked away, and waved Nose-ring and Stinky forward. Sean held up two key rings, and the girl another.

"I know you drive the hayseed truck, Macho Man, which set of keys is yours? We might have use for a truck later tonight."

Jim considered stalling, but the still form of Sandburg behind Derek was good enough reason to cooperate. He nodded toward the girl.

"Those are mine," he said, and was amazed when Sean returned the other two sets of keys to the basket. Then Moe had shoved him toward the door. No one had thought to close it behind them, and Jim felt a small measure of hope at that. If anyone showed up at their door, Rafe in search of his keys, or whomever, they'd know something was wrong. Still fighting for control of his senses, Jim had gone along quietly, almost willingly, and stopped with Derek and Moe at the rear of the small black pickup. Nose-ring and Stinky had headed for his truck, giggling, and already entwined in each other's arms. Any thoughts of escape Jim might have had fled when Derek had unlocked and yanked open the canopy door. Overcome by the odors pouring out of the camper, Jim had gagged and doubled over. Moe and Derek had laughed, but Jim's nausea left him helpless as they shoved him through the door, into the stench, hogtying him as insurance against escape before they jumped out and locked the door behind them.

And here he was, an eternity later, helpless in the hell created by his own overactive senses. Hopefully by now Blair had revived, and had the cavalry out looking for him. Jim could do nothing but try to ride this one out. Whether or not the cavalry was going to have any idea *where* to look for him was something Jim didn't even want to think about.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Held back against the passenger seat in Simon's sedan by his seatbelt, Blair drummed his fingers on the armrest--softly, soundlessly, as a man who was used to riding with a Sentinel should. Only he wasn't riding with a Sentinel tonight, he was riding with Simon, rookie detective with his Captain, chasing their noses in the foothills surrounding Cascade--and hoping he still had a Sentinel to ride with when the night was over. Blair said nothing as Simon cut the cherry lights and the sirens and turned off Cascade Highway onto Schefflin Road. Despite the aspirin he'd taken before leaving the loft, his headache remained, though he wasn't sure if it was the residual effects of two blows to his head or his fear for Jim that still pounded behind his eyes. Taut silence stretched between the two men, silence that filled the shadowed interior of the car and then overflowed out into the turbid night beyond them, muffling whatever sounds might have come from the houses and farms they passed.

Even when they left the blacktop behind, following the headlights onto the gravel farm road that wound up into the hills, Simon was silent. Seemed he couldn't think of anything else to say to his newest detective, nothing after he'd offered up the standard "Jim's a good cop, and he's tough, Blair; he'll hang on until we get there." Oh, and don't forget "He knows we're looking for him, and we know who took him. You know that's half the battle." Platitudes, useless platitudes was all they were. Words couldn't erase the hunger in Derek's eyes when Jim challenged him, the hunger of a young buck when he sees the seasoned, older warrior and wonders if he can do it, if he can take his elder down. Just like the young gunfighters must have eyed men like Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and a hundred other unsung heros in the wild west; the way bigger, stronger, younger warriors in primitive societies always stalked the older, wiser men, in hopes of taking them down and taking their place, their women--their mojo.

The Law of the Jungle, it was called, and only the strongest survived. Jim Ellison was normally one of the strongest, easily voted most likely of anyone to survive, but not tonight. Tonight something had already turned his incredible genetic advantage against him, transformed his greatest strength into his greatest weakness. Their friends usually thought Jim looked after Blair, took care of him, and in some cases it was true. But the truth was Blair looked after Jim. Simon was the only one who understood that. Blair was the one who checked the ingredients on every consumable that came into the loft, the one who did the research and worked out the parameters on what Jim's senses could and could not handle. He was the one Jim depended on to make sure those senses were an asset, and not just a one-way ticket to a padded room with a free fitting for a straightjacket thrown in. Sure, Jim was tough, but like any finely tuned and highly strung instrument, the slightest push could send him out of tune, out of adjustment--leave him vulnerable.

Just like something had tonight, back when Blair didn't think this particular nightmare could get any worse. But it had, because this time, instead of Blair protecting him when he was vulnerable, a near out-of-control Jim had taken control, pushing Derek and getting himself hauled off. That left Blair to run after them and hope to god he got there in time, arrived before Jim's heroics got him killed. Turn about was fair play; after all, Jim had run to rescue Blair more than the reverse, but still, being the runnee sucked, no matter which way you looked at it. And Blair hadn't been able to stop him, had caught on too late to what his Sentinel was doing, and when push came to shove he'd wound up out cold on the floor while the hyenas he'd let in made off with the wounded jaguar.

Shit. Blair dropped his head into one hand, accepting the pain of the cut from Derek's gun hitting his palm as his just deserts. That particularly vivid picture was *not* an image he wanted to hold on to, at all. Taking a deep breath, he told himself Jim was okay until proven otherwise, and concentrated once more on willing his headache away. He wanted to be in some sort of shape to help his partner if--*when* they caught up to him.

Simon's cell phone rang and one dark hand, almost invisible in the faint light of the digital dash, reached out to snag the phone and push the connect button. The car never slowed down, taking the gravel turns at a speed definitely above optimal recommendations as Simon barked, "Banks." He listened, and Blair waited some more, staring out the window at the passing trees, their trunks long ghostly legs spiraling out of the dense undergrowth before flashing away into the pitiless night behind them. Above the foothills, to the south and miles away, the pale blush of Cascade could be seen, the overcast sky glowing with reflected streetlight. Out here, though, there was nothing, no light, just more trees, the damned clouds, and the unremitting gloom.

No sign of a misplaced turquoise and white truck, nor one slightly-wacked-out detective.

"You're sure? Okay, wait there. We've got the sheriff's deputy behind us, and we'll be there in five." Without further adieu, Simon punched another button and dropped the small handset back down on the car seat. Eyes on the road, he told Blair, "Looks like they turned aside at an abandoned farm. Henri's keeping an eye on them from the main road."

A small eternity later, a large rural mailbox flashed in their headlights, and Simon eased up on the accelerator. Then there was a flash of silver, and Henri's car appeared, parked in the entrance to a logging road, their headlights briefly illuminating the warning sign about merging trucks. Simon braked, and maneuvered past Henri up to the overgrown tilly hump that blocked further access to the road. Henri was at Simon's door the minute they stopped. Megan and Rafe pulled in behind them, and Joel followed. Last of all was a County Sheriff's Suburban that disgorged not one, but two Deputy Sheriffs.

"I got far enough down the driveway to see Jim's truck; it's parked by the house. The other rig kept going; I couldn't see where it went. Whoever was in Jim's truck got out and went into the house." The whites of Henri's eyes flashed in the darkness as he glanced to where Blair stood on the other side of the car, and then continued, "No sign of Jim, nothing I could see, anyway."

"This is the old Chalmer's place," one of the deputies stated, his face hardly visible in the darkness. He held one hand out toward Simon. "Desmond Rafferty, County Sheriff's office. This is Deputy Tony Newhouse. Old man Chalmers died last year, kid lives in Los Angeles or someplace. Got a fancy lawyer working on changing the zoning so he can subdivide it and sell. Shame of it all is that it was a damn fine farm."

As if that made any difference to anything now. Turning his back to the group, Blair stared into the surrounding forest, willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Where was Jim now? Had he been able to keep the fragile control Blair had helped him establish before Derek and his friends came bursting in?

Moving a couple of steps away from the murmur of voices as Simon and Rafferty began to quietly put the raiding party in order, Blair spoke softly into the night.

"Jim, man, I don't know if you can hear this, but hang on, okay? The cavalry's on its way, we just have to get our collective asses in order here. Territory and all that, you know? Just hang on, man, hang on. We're almost there, okay?"

Taking a couple of steps toward the driveway that led toward the house, toward Jim, he damped down quickly on the thought they might have dumped Jim somewhere else, that he might not even *be* with whomever that was driving his truck. No sense borrowing trouble, and, if they were lucky, it would all end here and now.

After an interminable minute everyone was loaded and ready, Rafferty handing three red tinted flashlights to Simon, who passed them on to Joel and Megan, keeping one for himself. Blair and Henri followed Simon and Deputy Sheriff Rafferty down the dirt driveway across from their parked cars, lights carefully pointed at the ground. Joel, Megan and Rafe got to go cross-country with Deputy Newhouse, headed down and around to hopefully come out at the back of the farmhouse at about the same time as Simon, Blair and Henri got to the front.

It still felt odd not have anyone yelling at him, "Sandburg, stay in the truck!" Or "Stay here and call for backup." Felt still more odd to be stepping carefully up the road with Simon, gun drawn and at the ready. He hadn't yet had any reason to fire his gun, or use it on anyone, not yet. Mostly he still talked his way out of stuff, or just the threat of his and Jim's guns had been enough to have the criminals backing down.

Somehow, when it came to Derek, Blair didn't think the *threat* of anything was going to be much of a deterrent at all.

The trek down the driveway was made in silence, the soughing wind in the pines and the gurgling creek behind the house covering their footfalls. The house itself was almost invisible against the darker mass of trees that surrounded it, Jim's truck a pale smudge at one side.

Blair stuck *right* behind the Sheriff's deputy as he slunk up beside the old truck, close enough to see the empty bed when the deputy shone his faint light on it. Nothing, and no one. Rafferty moved on to the cab, and Simon quickly took the other side. But, again, there was no one, nothing visible in the pale red light. Blair bit back a sigh of frustration. Okay, that meant Jim had to be in the boarded-up house, had to be.

Once more Rafferty took the lead, across the yard that was more dead pine needles than grass, up the concrete steps into the empty doorway at the front of the house. Blair was grateful that no one argued with his right to be the one at the Deputy's heels as they quietly entered the house. There was no one in the front room as they went in, nor was anyone in the dining room or the small bedroom and the bathroom that led from it. The back door creaked as they left the dining room for the kitchen, and Newhouse eased his way into the building to find four guns pointing his way. Behind him lurked the other three Major Crimes detectives.

Simon shook his head and waved at the steps off to the right of the back door. Joel nodded and took point as that group went slowly downstairs. Blair was right behind Rafferty as he checked out the stairs that led up from the other end of that wall. At the top a faint glow of light could be seen, and that might have been giggling they could hear. Practically sliding up the wall, the fifth step creaked under the Deputy's weight, and the other three men carefully stepped over it. At the top of the stairs an empty hallway led to three doors. It didn't take Sentinel senses to smell the odor of raw sewage leaking from behind the first door visible from the top of the stairwell. Someone was still using the bathroom here, whether the plumbing worked or not. Halfway down the hall another door was open, the room beyond it dark. But at the end of the hall a third door had a sliver of light coming from beneath it, and there was definitely giggling coming from the room beyond.

Giggling and...moaning.

Stalking down the hall, Blair shared a disgusted look with Simon before moving up beside the Deputy Sheriff, who stood scowling at the door. Simon gestured Henri into the dark room, and then came up beside Blair. A few seconds later, Henri came out shaking his head. Rafferty gently tried the doorknob, and finding it unlocked, looked back at Simon. The captain nodded, held up three fingers, and slowly counted down with them. As Simon finished the count, Rafferty flung the door open, and Blair led the way into the room, yelling, "Police, freeze!"

Bare bottom up in the air, Sean froze, while beneath him the blonde chick squealed. Much more than her tattoo was exposed this time, and she grabbed at the blanket beneath her, before the Deputy's voice boomed a second warning.

"The man said, 'FREEZE!'" She froze this time, and both kids blinked wide-eyed at the four officers now filling the room. Blair wanted to check the place out, was dying to see if Jim was there, somewhere. But he was a good cop now, and he held his gun on the kids while the Deputy pulled Sean off the girl, then stood them both up in the corner with their hands on their heads while he searched the blankets on which the girl had been lying. Looking up at Simon when he finished, he said, "No weapons."

There was a collective release of tension in the room, and Blair gratefully dropped his own gun back into its holster. He spun around, searching the area for one Sentinel, slightly hard-headed and abrupt at times, missing since three hours ago. Nothing. No Jim, just a few empty liquor bottles, a camping lantern, and two naked teenagers with a pile of dirty blankets. Simon barked over his shoulder at Henri, in the doorway, "Get Connor up here." Henri nodded and was gone. Blair stared as the deputy carefully shook out two blankets, and handed one to each shivering suspect. Sean's..."ardor" had noticeably cooled, and the girl had a tattoo of a butterfly on one breast. They stood there, mouths open--a far cry from the hyenas that had burst into the loft earlier that night.

"Is this them, Blair?" Simon's voice was careful, controlled, his anger barely contained. Blair looked at him, then around the room again, before nodding. His head was throbbing again, and he was still trying to process the fact that Jim wasn't in the room, hadn't been in the hou--unless he was downstairs. Jim was probably completely out of it, that's all; unconscious if *he* was lucky, and maybe they didn't want an audience, so they'd taken Jim downstairs. He turned toward the door, only to be stopped by Simon's hand on his chest. He looked up into gentle eyes.

Oh, that's right, Simon had asked him a question.

"Yeah, they were there," Blair said, shooting the couple a digusted look. "You can't miss her perfume, the loft probably still reeks of it. His name's Sean, and he had a real good time searching Jim's room, and then handcuffing him."

As he finished, Megan hurried into the room, Henri a step behind her. The Australian was slightly out of breath, her face streaked with dust. She was pulling cobwebs from her curly hair. With a guilty glance at Blair, she stepped around in front of Simon.

"Sir, downstairs? We found stereo equipment, electronics, other items, probably stolen." She stopped, caught her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, and flicked another glance at Blair. "There's, um...there's no sign of Jim."

Simon sighed, and turned toward the kids. But Blair was there ahead of him.

"Where is he? What the hell did you do with him?" He yelled, grabbing Sean by the shoulders and pushing him back into the wall. The girl shrieked and fell back, into Megan's grip, but Blair ignored her for now. Sean's eyes were wide, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped for air. But he didn't answer--didn't do anything except maintain a great impersonation of a tiny rabbit in the predator's grip. Putting his face up into the young man's, Blair shoved him up against the wall again and grated out, "Where the hell is my *partner*?"

"Blair!" Hands were pulling at him, and the boy was whimpering in his grasp. Blair fought them off, keeping the pressure on Sean, but there were too many of them, and Henri and Simon practically lifted him off his feet as they pulled him back. Rafferty was there too, prying Blair's fingers loose from the blanket wrapped around the now openly crying young man. Once Sean was free, Simon and Henri dragged Blair back several feet. Off to one side now, Megan had a firm lock on the girl's elbows, while Joel and Rafe stared open-mouthed at the scene from the doorway. Deputy Newhouse could be seen in the hall behind them, peering into the room over their shoulders.

Simon wouldn't let go of Blair, even though Henri had already released him. Blair shot a sullen look at Simon.

"I'm fine, I'm *cool*, all right? Geez. I'm cool, I'm cool! Let me go already."

There was a long silence as Simon stared sternly at Blair. Blair stared back until the Captain sighed and let go, turning to face Sean. Blair shrugged, resettling his jacket on his shoulders, and took a couple of steps away from Banks. Then it was his turn to glare at Sean--who wouldn't or couldn't face him, turning his face into the wall as he sobbed. Rafferty cast a sympathetic look their way, but Blair wasn't sure if it was for him or his Captain. Then the deputy stepped back, leaving Simon a clear path to the boy. Taking a moment to adjust his glasses, Simon stood up to his full height before addressing Sean.

"My detective did ask you a question, young man. I'd suggest you answer it."

All they got was more sobs from the boy, as he closed his eyes and slowly sank to his knees. Simon sighed, and suddenly the girl spoke up.

"Shit, Sean, put a sock in it! All you gotta do is tell them what they want and they'll leave you alone. That's how these things work. I can't believe you're so stupid." Jerking her arm from Megan's grasp, she stepped forward and fixed her gaze on Simon. "Look, the stuff they took is in the corner there." One black-tipped finger pointed the corner out. "It's all there, all of it. The computer and everything. Now can we go?"

Dead silence in the room. She had to be kidding.

Turning to her, Simon smiled. If the girl had known him better, she wouldn't have looked half so cocky. Blair found a grim satisfaction in anticipating her reaming.

"And you are?" Simon asked. Encouraged by his gentle tone of voice, completely missing the steel beneath his enquiry, the girl smiled and shifted under her blanket so one white shoulder gleamed in the lantern light. Someone snorted, but it wasn't Blair.

"Yolanda. Yolanda Burke." Her smile grew. "The stuff's all there, Captain. I promise."

"Ah. Thank you. I'm sure Detective Sandburg appreciates the care you took with his belongings. But, Miss Burke, there is still this little matter of my missing detective."

Yolanda blinked. Her eyes flickered over to where Sean had controlled his sobs, but was still gasping for air. He managed to glare at her, but she just made a face at him. Then she turned back to Simon.

"I'm sorry," she simpered, the blanket slipping further from her shoulder, "I really don't know anything at all about him. Sean and I were just here to, you know..." She smiled again, and this time there was more than one snort.

Blair took half a step toward her, but Henri's hand on his elbow stopped him. Blair shot a glare over his shoulder at his fellow detective, but Henri simply shook his head briefly. Dammit, the wench was lying through her teeth! But Henri was right, and Simon was in control here.

"Miss, not only were you seen driving my missing detective's stolen truck, we have an eyewitness who places you at the scene of a kidnapping, a kidnapping that involves a highly decorated police officer. I suggest you drop the innocent act before you're in any deeper than you already are. I assure you, I am quite resistant to your..." Simon hesitated, then his teeth flashed as he grimaced toward her. He continued, "Your charms. Your interests would be better served if you cooperated--"

"I told you, I don't know," Yolanda cut in stridently. "I didn't have anything to do with any of this. Look, my dad is--"

"Miss, I don't give a rat's ass who your dad is," Simon snarled at her. Yolanda blinked again, and then took a step backward as he advanced toward her. "I am a police captain with a missing detective, a detective last seen in the company of, among others, you and your friend here. Now if you have anything further to add to your comments so far, I'd suggest you do so, NOW."

Mouth agape, she stared at him. She gathered the blanket up over her shoulder, and looked around the room for sympathy. Finding none, her gaze returned to Simon. Her brow wrinkled in confusion.

"But, the stuff we took is *right* there and--"

"The quarry."

Every head swiveled toward Sean, still huddled on the floor. Again, Blair found himself restrained by Henri's hand, and again, though he returned Blair's glare with sympathy, the bald detective refused to let go. No one said anything, and, Sean shifted uncomfortably under the combined weight of their attention. Shooting a quick glance at Blair, he stared off into the darkness.

"The quarry, the old gravel quarry," he said again.

"The one Chalmer's son tried to start up?" Rafferty asked, taking a step forward and kneeling beside Sean. Gulping audibly, Sean nodded.

"There's a shooting range there now. Derek, and Moe, we set it up. Yolanda and me...uh...we were supposed to meet them there after, after..." his gaze flicked over toward Yolanda--Yolanda, who, if looks could kill, would be sent up on murder charges right now.

"You stupid little shi--" she started, but Megan's abrupt tug on her arm put a stop to whatever else she had to say.

"You know where this quarry is?" It was Simon's turn to ask as he looked toward Rafferty.

The deputy nodded up at the taller man.

"It's at the back of the property, a mile or so from here. The driveway extends past the house, on up the valley, straight to the quarry. Neighbors down the road complained about the noise and dust, he had to shut it down." His gaze settled on Henri, before coming back to Simon. "It makes sense, since your man saw both vehicles turn in and the other one isn't here now. We know they didn't go back out the way we came."

Blair couldn't believe they were just standing around and talking. It was one long step over toward Simon before he grabbed his elbow.

"Well, c'mon, then, let's go! What are we wasting time here for? We can take Jim's truck and they'll think we're Miss America and John Wayne here and we can be right in the middle of them before--"

Simon's gentle grip on his arm stopped Blair as he headed for the door. Still holding onto Blair, Simon focused on the shivering boy in front of them.

"What were they planning to do, son?" Sean didn't say anything, just shivered again. "Son?" Simon asked, his voice velvet steel.

"Don't you dare, Sean, you shut up, you shut up, NOW!" Yolanda screeched, before Megan got her in a headlock with one hand over her mouth. Joel moved over, ostensibly to offer backup, but Megan had the girl well in hand.

"Derek..." Staring at Yolanda, struggling in Megan's grip, Sean paused, and swallowed. Then, refusing to look in their eyes, he continued, his voice barely above a whisper. "He wanted...the old man, he begged before he died. He was just a bum, someone Moe and Derek found out on the streets one night. And then there was this girl...Derek thought a cop would be tougher, he thought...he wanted..." Every eye was on him, and no one was breathing. "He thought a cop would be fun..he wanted to make a cop beg, he wanted to see what it was like to...to off a cop. He's been planning this for a couple of weeks, he wanted you." Sean's gaze flicked over to Blair before he said, "He thought you'd be easier to get. But then your partner was there and--"

"Megan, you and Joel stay here, Miranda these two and get them down to lock up. The rest of you are with me."

Blair was already halfway down the stairs as Simon issued his orders, Rafferty and his deputy at his heels. Seconds later, the men burst out of the house. Rafferty and his deputy started off towards the road, but Blair grabbed Rafferty's coatsleeve as Simon, Rafe, and Henri erupted from the house behind them.

"Jim's truck, if the keys are in it, we can take it, and he'll think we're those two, coming up to meet them," he repeated. Blair didn't wait to see if Rafferty was coming with him, he ran for Jim's truck and jumped in, reaching down to the left side to check for the keys. Yes! They were in. Rafferty joined him in the cab, and the truck lurched as the other four policemen landed in the bed of the truck.

"Where to?" Blair asked, and Rafferty opened his mouth to reply when they all heard it: Not one, but two gunshots, echoing in the distance.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Feet bound, hands still tightly cuffed behind his back, Jim Ellison lay amidst the dirt and gravel and the spent shell casings and imagined his Guide's voice.

*Just picture the dial in your head, Jim, and then make the connection to your senses. You control them, man. It's all up to you!*

The original label on this particular dial in Jim Ellison's mind had long since been replaced. "T" for "touch" was gone, in its place a new letter, a rather large, rather capital "P"--for "Pain." Eyes closed, breathing harshly through his nose, and doing his damnedest to ignore the shivering itches crawling across his skin, the stabbing, burning pains in his arms and legs, the burning gouges left by Derek's bullets as they passed across his upper arm and along his ribs--Jim pushed all those things and the rough gravel digging into his face and chest away, and painfully, carefully built the image of the dial in his mind. Once he had it, he wrenched it down to zero as fast as he could.

He gasped in relief, and then sneezed as he inhaled a breath that was more dust than air, more motes and molecules of diesel and his own blood and adolescent smells of excitement and Derek's bloodlust and...Jim sneezed again and then once more began the laborious process of constructing another dial in his mind's eye. Not that the dials helped much right now; his control was too shot for them to work for long, but at least for the moment he could ignore some of the myriad torturous sensations that were threatening his control entirely. If he could get a couple of the other dials down now maybe he could hold on until the help promised in that all-too-brief whisper an age ago materialized--if it ever did.

No, that wasn't fair. Sandburg had somehow followed him, it was only a matter of time until they found him, and Jim just had to hang on until then. Okay, so, while he had time, back to the dials.

Inhaling one more dust and decay-laden breath only to find himself fighting another sneeze, Jim decided that smell might be a good place to go next. Something else was dead around here, and the stench was overwhelming--to him anyway. Sight was necessary for now. Sound wasn't too bad at this point; the babbling creek in the background washed soothingly over his sensitive eardrums, enabling him to focus on something besides the pounding of his own heart and the debate the young punks with guns were having over by Derek's truck. Poor boys, they were having a hard time trying to decide just exactly what to do next with their uncooperative captive.

He managed to turn the dial for smell down to zero before the crunch of gravel signaled the return of his tormenters and the end of his reprieve. He didn't waste much energy wondering what they had in mind for him. Neither boy struck him as particularly bright, and so far their attempts to frighten him had been childishly pathetic: A gun to his head, a few blows from Moe, shoving him around and pushing him down into the dirt, and then Derek shooting at him--obviously intending to miss. If they wanted him to be afraid they were going to have to work a lot harder than either of them appeared willing to at this point.

Once again Moe hauled him to his feet, held him up to face Derek. Jim could barely make out Derek's smile, backlit as it was by the headlights behind the young man. Squinting and flinching away from the stabbing light, Jim realized he probably should have gone for the sight dial instead of smell. Watching Derek's smile grow as the boy brought a silver cigarette lighter up to his face, snapped it open and lit it, only reinforced his regret. Damn. "Hey, Macho Man. I think we figured out how to get you begging. And screaming." Leering at Jim for a minute longer, Derek looked beyond him to Moe. "Come on, we don't want to start a forest fire now, do we?"

Damn! The punks had gotten imaginative on him, figured out a way to have their fun and not break a sweat. No matter, he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of struggling or whining. Not that he was capable of much beyond that right now, but...

Catching him under the arms, Moe dragged him a few yards back then dropped him down beside a large rock, propping him to sit up against it. Derek squatted in front of him while Moe trudged back toward the parked truck.

"You could end this now, you know." Derek's smile was feral. Moe was a shadow beside the truck, and whatever he was doing clanked on the rocky ground. Jim couldn't see anymore than that before Derek snapped the lighter open in front of his face. One thumb called the flame up, and he stared raptly at it for a moment before looking up at Jim. "I can be merciful, you know. You'll be begging for mercy in a bit anyway. All you got to do is say 'please,' cop, that's all."

Blinking hard in the glare of the lights, Jim stared at the boy, then carefully worked his throat. Derek looked back over his shoulder to include Moe in his gloating, and then Jim spat on one ostrich-toed boot.

"Son of a bitch!" Derek roared, jerking his boot back and then planting it in Jim's belly. Bereft of air, Jim toppled over and writhed on the ground, desperately sucking with lungs that refused to cooperate. He'd just gotten things coordinated again between his mouth and his respiratory system when Derek's boot landed on his ear, grinding the right side of Jim's face down into the gravel. "You stupid son of a bitch. I could kill you here, you know that? I could kill you right now!" he screamed, and Jim couldn't help wincing as his hearing kicked in suddenly. Derek mistook the grimace for victory, and he removed his boot, leaning down next to Jim and caressing his cheek with the small metal box. "Say please," he cooed.

"Like hell," Jim grated, succeeding in dialing his hearing down a few notches. He was braced for the next kick, and though he closed his eyes just before the impact, only a slight "oof!" escaped him. Jim opened his eyes as Moe rejoined them, and found himself eyeing the bottle Moe held carelessly by the neck. At one point the gallon container had held wine. Jim didn't need his sense of smell to tell him what that funny orangey-pink colored liquid that filled it now was: the fruits of Moe's labor over at the small truck. Following Jim's gaze to the bottle, Moe spat on the ground and smiled. This time Jim couldn't stop the shivers that shook him. There hadn't been any light in those flat, dark eyes before, but the appearance of it now was not reassuring at all--it was chilling, and far more frightening than the wild gleam in Derek's eyes.

Irritated that Moe was getting a reaction from his captive when he had failed, Derek dug at Jim's side with his boot.

"You know, we should have taken that rat, Sandburg. He'd have been screaming by now."

Jim didn't dignify that comment with any kind of a response. Yeah, right. And someday pigs would fly.

"Hear me, cop? Maybe when we're done with you we'll go back for the little rat." Derek laughed, and Moe smiled again, the unholy gleam flashing again in his eyes. Toeing Jim's head, Derek crowed, "We can have a real pig roast!"

Sure they could. Jim worked up enough saliva to answer Derek.

"Dream on, Mansfield," he wheezed, swallowing and trying to work up enough spit to set the punk straight about his partner. The touch dial was holding, good thing too. Smell was a bit iffy, but at least he was maintaining control of things--for now. "Sandburg's already lived through tougher than you. Your big mistake was taking him on in the first place. If you had real balls you would have tried to live up to be the man he saw inside you. He'd have gone to bat for you, but now he's gonna be out for your blood."

Derek rolled his eyes.

"Oh, right, like I'm so scared of him."

"You should be," was all Jim offered. There wasn't any more to say. He knew what would happen to these two once word got out about what they had done--were going to do to him. They'd be lucky to be shot on sight.

Though at this point Jim would gladly take being shot on sight instead of what he was facing.

Derek shared a laugh with Moe, and then Moe handed the bottle of gasoline to Derek. Walking over to where Jim lay, he yanked him back up to his knees, grabbing his head air and turning him up to where Derek could stare down into his eyes.

Derek held the bottle above Jim's head and crooned, "Beg, sucker, just beg." Trying to ignore the knowledge of just how that gasoline was going to feel hitting his already tortured skin, Jim's gaze slid from the bottle of gasoline down to Derek, and he let the contempt he felt show in his eyes.

"What for? So you can pretend those tiny little *cojones* of yours make you a man?" Jim snorted. "Got a news flash for you, Mansfield. It ain't how well you're hung or the size of your gun makes you a man. That's just window dressing. It's not who you take out either. What counts is what's on the inside. That's what makes you big, makes you a real man. Know what, kid? You're not a man; you're just a spoiled brat trying to play with the big boys. You're not even big enough to get out of the playpen."

Jim saw the blow coming, but he couldn't avoid it. Derek's ring left another cut open on the Sentinel's cheek, and Moe released him to fall back down into the gravel. Laughing, Derek held the bottle up, and Jim closed his eyes as the opening tipped toward him. Desperately holding onto the picture of the "Touch" dial at zero--*zero*--he couldn't stop the twitching that shook his muscles as the liquid began to splash over him. The cuts on his face and then the bullet burns flared as the gasoline found its way into them and Jim was losing control over the dial. One, dammit, it was at *one,* but it was slipping as the gasoline slid over his inflamed skin and in the end, Jim was barely able to keep the dial at three. Okay, so that's where it had to be. He could ignore pain, he'd done it before, as long as nothing else went out on him. Then the dial for smell slipped, and he gagged on the stench of the gasoline dripping from the end of his nose.

Swallowing against the bile, Jim heard Sandburg's voice.

*You can do this, man! C'mon Jim, concentrate! Find the dials, turn them down, and *don't* let go!*

He was trying, Blair, dammit, he was trying. Yeah, he'd trained for this, actually been trained to resist worse--much worse than this. Trouble was his Army training had never taken into account hypersensitive senses, touch, smell, hearing, all way above normal. If he couldn't get them under control he was going to experience his own death with the equivalent of Dolby Sensurround Sound.

Jim swallowed, desperately fighting the instinctive impulse to lick the liquid off his lips, to open his eyes. He ruthlessly slammed the dials to zero, all of them, sound and sight and touch...touch was hovering between 2 and 3 now, and would go no lower with the oily slippery feel of fuel on him, the stinging and burning where the fluid was interacting with the rash he had from that damn synthetic blanket in the truck. Fine, leave it there, go for the last two, smell and taste. Okay, he had them down, but...But dammit, he was not going to go out like this, shivering and quaking in his boots. He was a Ranger, and a cop, and a *Sentinel*, and he was going to *face* death with as much dignity as his shattered senses would allow him.

And hopefully by the time he couldn't help but scream he'd be too far gone to know it.

Resolutely Jim allowed sight and sound to come up to where he could open his eyes, where he could hear again. He tried to focus on the soothing murmur of the creek instead of the gasoline gurgling out that damn bottle, but there was a new noise, a rumbling somewhere out in the forest that kept interrupting, some sibilant, unidentifiable sound underneath it that kept yanking him back, preventing him from zoning on the creek and then his skin was burning all over and Jim gave up. Well, hell, it hadn't been his night at all so far, why should he expect it to be different now?

Moe definitely had a talent when it came to siphoning; Derek had enough gasoline to drench Jim's entire form with the liquid and still lay a trail of gasoline out across the gravel. He watched as Derek shook the last few droplets out a few feet away from where he lay. Gee, wouldn't want to be so far away they missed any of the upcoming show, would they? Empty, Derek tossed the container back over toward Jim, and it smashed on the ground beside him.

Both boys stepped away from him then, Derek sniggering and Moe's eyes crinkling as they shared some joke he had missed. Aw, too bad the talent scout for Jay Leno wasn't here, maybe the boys could have gotten a good spot. Then Derek, with a glance at Jim, jogged Moe's elbow with his own.

"You ready, Moe?" he grinned, and Moe, unholy fires burning deep in his eyes, nodded once before he too looked at Jim. Derek held out the lighter, making sure Jim's eyes were on him before thumbing it to life.

"Last chance, cop. Beg, now, beg for your life."

Jim just stared back at him, and Derek, his eyes again falling away from Jim's direct gaze, shook his head.

"So be it, you stupid bastard."

But as Derek knelt, the rumbling became a roar, and Jim finally identified the sound as an engine. All three men looked as the vehicle came charging out of the forest. Jim blinked and tried to focus, but couldn't make out anything more than a pale blur before the headlights stabbed across his line of sight and blinded him.

"Hell, Sean ain't got no endurance! Yolanda ain't gonna let him have no more if he can't do her better than that!" Jim heard Derek's laugh, but he was once again fighting for some semblance of control over senses that refused to be controlled. He smelled that laugh, and felt the small flame of the lighter die as Derek stood. Control was gained at the sacrifice of another notch on the pain dial. Telling himself he'd had worse sunburns than this, Jim opened his eyes to find Moe staring at him, while Derek was more interested in watching the approaching truck bounce and clatter through the rocky clearing. Whoever it was driving was going much too fast for either safety or comfort. Moe looked up and he and Derek both cheered when it lurched into a particularly large chughole.

"Yowee, if he ain't careful they're gonna knock themselves out on the roof!" Derek took a couple of steps towards the approaching truck. Jim had more pressing concerns. Turning his head away from the approaching lights, he struggled to keep from losing control of his dials altogether. The longer the gasoline had to soak into his skin, the more it burned and itched. He could feel the heat building in his skin; at this rate he'd burst into flames spontaneously, no need for Derek's lighter. Derek's yell cut through his concentration.

"What the hell does that idiot think he's doing? Hey, Sean! Hey, stupid! Stop the damn truck!"

But evidently Sean didn't hear or didn't care, because the truck kept coming, even faster now, headed straight to where the three men waited. Both boys' attention now focused on the oncoming vehicle, Jim didn't waste the opportunity. Gathering his strength, he managed to roll over once, away from the gasoline soaked gravel he was lying on, before Derek shouted again.

"SEAN! DAMN YOU! STOP!"

Jim checked to see what Moe and Derek were doing. Derek had taken a couple more steps away from the gasoline trail. Hands on his hips, he frowned with confusion at the vehicle, which showed no signs of stopping. But Moe was no longer watching Derek or the truck, he was watching Jim. As their eyes met, Moe smiled. With athletic grace he reached out to slip the lighter from Derek's hand and then he was bending over to light the trail of gasoline that still, in spite of Jm's efforts, led straight to him.

As the truck came closer, the flame licked up, crawling across the gravel toward him. Jim tried to roll over again, get further away from the flames. When his body refused to obey him, he closed his eyes and tried not to think about anything at all, tried to prepare himself for death, to empty his mind...He ignored the sounds of the truck skidding across the gravel. There was an instant where he thought he smelled Sandburg, heard him, but Jim refused to look, refused to be deceived. Blair was gonna feel like shit after tonight, and it was gonna be Jim's fault for not holding on long enough to tell his roommate that this was *not* his fault. No one was to blame here, no one but the twisted punks who were getting their jollies out of his misery.

Okay, enough of this self-pity stuff, he might as well face it now as later. He wasn't going to get any further away than he already was. Steeling himself, clamping down firmly on the dials, wherever they were, Jim pushed himself over on his side and turned to face the fire.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was a night that refused to measured in anything but forevers--forever to get Jim's senses under control, forever to catch up with Henri, forever to find out where Derek had taken him. And, once again, it was taking forever to reach the elusive gravel quarry--and Jim. Blair had no idea how much time had passed as he followed the barely discernible track through the trees and overgrown underbrush that Rafferty had optimistically labeled a road, but any amount of time was too long at this point. Jim's truck lurched and there was another squeal as more paint was sacrificed to the blackberries that seemed to have claimed the right-of-way for now. For the fourth or fifth time since leaving the farm, Blair slammed the shift lever down into lo gear, and the truck crawled through this patch of bushes, to come out and round the bend to see...Damn! More bushes, more trees, and more no Jim! Damn!

"Damn. Jim, man, hang on, we're trying, we're trying. It's just not going very fast, here, man. This is just so not the way I imagined it would be, you know? I thought it would be easy, you know, you just drive up, get out and break down the door waving your gun around and save the day. But, man that is so not the case. This riding to the rescue stuff is just so not fun, not fun at all, man. And I thought it sucked being the rescuee. You can have this cavalry, shit, Jim, you can have it all. This is just *not* my idea of a good time."

Shifting back into high once he cleared the thicket, Blair kept his eyes on the road as he continued to mutter, ignoring the strange looks coming from Rafferty. Rafferty didn't matter, he didn't care if the guy thought he'd gone loopy. Blair just hoped and prayed Jim was still alive to hear his reassurances.

Anything else was just not an option.

And finally, after forever driving through the darkness, they were there, coming around a bend, pushing through the hugest fern Blair had ever seen to break out into the open and find themselves at the edge of the quarry. On Blair's right the headlights flashed over a small, black truck, its headlights on and illuminating three men in the clearing in front of Blair, one man lying on the ground a few feet away from where the remaining two stood.

Blair's headlights flashed across the man on the ground, and his teeth clenched as he recognized his partner's face before the man's head dropped back down into the dirt. Oh my god....

And Jim just lay there, on the ground, not moving. Ohmygod...

And this damned clearing was full of potholes and large rocks that made steering a straight line damned near impossible. But Blair gunned it and kept going, way too fast, throwing Rafferty and the four poor souls in the back of the truck around, because even though this time he had an actual visual sighting of his partner, it was taking forever to get to Jim.

Underneath his fear, Blair felt a faint pleasure that his assessment of the situation had been so accurate; Derek saw no threat in the approaching truck. The punk had actually stepped forward to meet them, putting enough distance between the motionless Sentinel and himself that Blair had just aimed the truck straight at them, not planning on coming to a stop until he was parked between them, Rafferty and his gun on Derek's side, Blair the Guide on Jim the Sentinel's side. Damn, they couldn't be too late, they just couldn't!

Okay, maybe his partner was just zoned. Blair tried to hold on to the hopeful thought--well, more hopeful than thinking Jim was just dead, wasn't it? But as the truck hit another pothole and he jerked the steering back into alignment with his plans, Jim began to move, struggling, then, with obvious effort, rolling over once, away from his captors. Okay, movement from Jim was good, movement away from Moe and Derek was better. But what in the world was Moe doing?

What in the world was painfully clear just a few seconds later as flames leaped up from where Moe had just been, flames that quickly began to lick along the gravel--towards Jim.

The pickup skidded across the rocks as Blair stomped first on the accelerator and then on the brake. Slamming the truck into park in front of a screaming Derek, he threw himself out of the cab and at Jim, Jim who was straining with the effort of trying to roll over one more time, trying to get further away from the flames following him, flames that abruptly flared up in front of Blair. Behind him Derek was still yelling and someone else was swearing but he had no time for anyone but Jim. Blair threw one hand up in front of his face and then he was through the wall of flame, left it flickering behind him except for one small tongue that was following his friend, and suddenly, this close to the other man, Blair smelled gasoline and realized just exactly what his friend had to fear from the flames.

"SHIT!" Blair shucked his coat and, standing between Jim and the fire, began beating at the flames, kicking and scattering the gravel in an attempt to stop the blaze from reaching the injured man, trying to put it out before the fumes pouring off of Jim could ignite as well. Simon materialized out of the darkness, and Blair yelled at him, "They doused Jim with gasoline; get him out of here!"

Simon's eyes grew huge, and he didn't waste any time, taking off his own coat and throwing it over the Sentinel before roughly grabbing Jim under the shoulders and dragging him back, further away from the flames. Blair heard the choked cry from Jim at Simon's manhandling, but he couldn't stop now, couldn't--Simon appeared beside him, and grabbed his hands.

"Give me that, he needs you." And with a sideways nod over his shoulder towards Jim, Simon turned back to the fire. Henri joined him then, and Newhouse, both swinging blankets at the flames, and Blair didn't have to be told twice. Three long seconds later, he was kneeling beside Jim, trying not to gag at the stench of fuel fumes pouring off the wounded man.

Shaking and shivering beneath Simon's coat, coated in dirt from his roll through the gravel, the bigger man could have been in camouflage from his Army days. But as Blair knelt beside him, he opened his eyes and coughed out, "Fancy meeting you here, Chief."

God, his voice sounded so weak!

"Man, Jim, I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?" Blair chided gently, and was rewarded with the barest hint of a smile before the Sentinel's eyes closed and he grimaced, coughing and retching onto the gravel. Quickly Blair dug in his pockets for his keys, and moved around behind Jim to get at the handcuffs binding him.

Rafe had joined the firefighting efforts, freeing Simon to help Blair. The big black man went down on one knee beside Jim's feet and began picking at the knots binding his ankles together. It only took a second or two longer to free Jim's feet than it took for Blair to get the cuffs all the way off. Jim gasped as his bonds were released, but he moved, brought his arms forward as he struggled to sit up. Blair and Simon both reached to support him, but the hoarse cry Jim uttered coupled with the shudder that shook the Sentinel at their touch halted them in their tracks. Blair's hand dropped back to his side and his eyes flew up to meet Simon's worried frown before focusing on Jim, who had collapsed back onto the ground with a groan.

"Jim, I need to see how you're doing here, okay?"

Sucking in great drafts of air through his nose, Jim didn't open his eyes, just nodded. Blair pulled the coat back, and Simon's sharp gasp echoed his own as they got a good look at their friend.

The light from two sets of headlights illuminated the strange pattern the gasoline had left as it was poured over the Sentinel. Some parts of his body appeared oily clean in the half-light, while others were dark where the fuel had simply mingled with the dust and whatever else Jim had been rolling in. Blood was added to the mix where it dripped from gouges in his arm and across his ribs. There was a new cut along Jim's cheekbone, just below the one from Derek's gun in the loft; both were caked with blood and dirt. His upper lip puffed out twice as big as it should have been, dark bruises shadowed his jaw and eyes and also stalked around Jim's wrists. More bruises decorated his torso. But worst of all were the angry, swollen welts that ran across Jim's bare skin, huge white welts that covered entire sections of skin and paused only for red, bumpy patches of blistering rash before taking off again across Jim's body. Blair couldn't find anywhere to touch his friend that the hives and rash weren't.

And over everything, the overpowering stench of gasoline.

"Shit, Simon, we have to get this stuff of him." Blair looked around, the creek he'd heard earlier had to be--

"Creek's right behind me, Chief," Jim rasped. "Do what you have to do." Clear blue eyes, lids swollen and achingly red, met his in a determined gaze, but Blair hesitated. Simon knelt beside him, while Henri now crouched a short distance away, his normally cheery countenance sober. Rafe had detoured to grab a flashlight before he headed their way. Derek and Moe, hands cuffed behind them, sat sullenly on the gravel by Jim's truck. Rafferty stood over them, a cell phone to his ear, and Newhouse was going through the cab of Derek's little truck.

All that Blair took in, before meeting Jim's gaze.

"Can you walk?"

Jim shook his head, and Blair took a deep breath before lowering his voice and leaning in close to Jim.

"Okay, can you get the dials do--"

"Dials have been shot for a while, Chief. I can hold them down a bit, keep them from going up too fast, but I can't turn anything off."

Blair heard what Jim didn't say in that, heard the muted agony threaded through the blunt statement. He exhaled a curse, but as Jim's bloodshot eyes met his, he nodded. Okay, so they had to be brutal to be kind.

"We'll go as fast as we can, man," he said, hating already what the next few moments were going to do to the Sentinel, hating the punks that had done this to Jim--and hating himself for allowing it to happen. But he'd indulged in self-recriminations enough for one night. It would all be there for study at a later time--shit, this night ought to give him nightmare fodder for at least a few years. For now he needed to concentrate on Jim. Jim...

Shivering, shuddering, Jim nodded once, and then closed his eyes, steeling himself, Blair knew, for the agony that was to come. Blair looked up at the three sober faces staring at them, and started issuing orders.

"Simon, you and Henri give me a hand here. Rafe? Give me that flashlight, man. Jim keeps a duffel bag with clean clothes and stuff behind the pickup seat. Get that and the first aid kit and the sleeping bag you should find back there and bring them to us down at the creek."

Snagging the flashlight Rafe held out before he turned and jogged towards Jim's truck, Blair then turned to Simon and Henri.

"You'll have to carry him, and it's gonna hurt, there's no way around it. We're going for fast here, not slow and careful, okay?" Both men nodded, Henri moving around to kneel beside Jim opposite Simon. Jim shuddered and gasped as they pulled him up and slung his arms over their shoulders. Linking their own arms behind his back and under his knees, Simon and Henri stood, carefully balancing Jim between them. Blair steadied him with one small touch and then, not bothering to step over Simon's coat as it slid to the ground, he led the way to the creek.

It was only about 100 feet distant, not even really a stone's throw, but by the time they got there, Jim was either unconscious or zoned, Blair wasn't sure which--and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. The idea of zoning on that much pain...Blair fought his own shivers, told himself it was because of the leather coat that lay ruined in the gravel behind them. Fortunately the gravel pit sloped down to a natural pool in the swift-running creek, so they didn't have to hunt along the rocky bank for a place to enter the water. Blair paused long enough to set the flashlight down on a flat rock at the edge of the creek, before splashing into the water behind the trio.

"Just get him down into the water, all the way down." Jim didn't move as they lowered him into the icy creek, the current supporting his lax body as they let it wash over him. Still shivering, Blair stood behind Jim and held his head, watching the water stream over Jim's body, rinsing away the blood and grime and hopefully the damned gasoline. In the gravel pit behind them there was a ruckus of cars arriving and lights flashing, but Blair ignored it all, standing there in the water with his Sentinel.

"Blair?" His arms full of the requested items, Rafe stood at the water's edge.

"Simon, take his head. I'll be right back."

Blair pushed through the thigh deep water over to the shallows where Rafe stood on the gravel, holding out Jim's first aid kit. At his feet were Jim's duffel bag and the sleeping bag. Blair ignored the first aid kit, grabbing the duffel bag instead. It only took a moment to find Jim's glycerin soap and a washrag.

"God bless the anal everywhere," he intoned, breaking the plastic lid off the soap container as he rushed to get it open. Ignoring Rafe's shocked expression, Blair headed back out in the water with soap and rag in hand. By the time he got back to Jim, he had a good lather worked up between the two. Henri and Simon were both shivering in the frigid water, but there was no movement from Jim yet. He nodded at Simon, and the Captain lifted Jim's head all the way out of the water, supporting it in the crook of his elbow as he shifted his grip to place his hands under Jim's shoulders.

"Henri," Simon said, and when the other man looked at him, he nodded his head toward the shore. "Get out of here, there's no sense both of us freezing," he ordered. After a moment, Henri nodded, and releasing Jim, headed back toward the shore. Simon called after him, "And see if Rafferty has any more of those blankets while you're at it! And us find something hot to drink--preferably coffee!" Henri turned to wave once in their direction, before trudging up the sloping bank back to the gravel pit. Simon's attention turned to his other detective. "Rafe, you get the towels out of that duffel bag, and then get that sleeping bag open." Barely visible behind the flashlight, Rafe nodded, and went to work.

Blair had dripped suds all over Jim's hair and neck, and now with Simon's support, he carefully covered Jim's face and ears with the soap. Making sure every portion of Jim's head was covered, he brushed gently at the swollen skin with the soft cloth, biting back the swear words as he did so. God, what kind of a person did you have to be to want to do this to another person? To deliberately plan on inflicting this much pain on another living being, this kind of agony...if they'd been two minutes later getting here...No. He wasn't going to allow those pictures to even play in his mind, not even as a might have been.

Collecting both rag and soap in one hand, Blair carefully placed the heel of his other hand against Jim's chin, holding his mouth closed. He then reached up and pinched off Jim's nose between his thumb and fingers. Moving the hand holding the soap and rag to underneath Jim's head, he looked up at Simon and nodded.

"Okay, I got him, let's rinse."

It was an eerie baptism in the dim night, Simon backing away long enough for Blair to lower Jim's head completely under the dark stream, both of them holding him there as they watched the current sluice away the dirty suds. Jim never moved, never reacted to his face being all the way underwater. Blair passed this forever focusing his anger, imagining Derek and Moe as the recipients of some of the more exotic tribal punishments he'd read about. There was this one Mayan ritual....

Of course, as the one who'd let his partner down, as the Guide who'd failed his Sentinel, the tribe just might decide that he, Blair, should share the punishment. And Blair wasn't sure he could argue with their logic. He'd ignored his Sentinel's warnings about Derek, he'd gone out of his way to make the boy--the animal--a part of his life--and thereby a part of Jim's. Some of the blame for tonight had to fall squarely on his own shoulders--never mind Simon's tense silence and clenched teeth clamped down on his own rage. The captain's anger would only be the tip of the iceberg Moe and Derek would find themselves buried under; the weight of Major Crimes' wrath for what had been done to one of their own would be massive indeed. Yet even though their friends and co-workers might overlook Blair's part in this night's debacle, he could not let himself off the hook.

As the suds disappeared downstream, Blair lifted Jim up out of the water, and Simon moved back in to brace him above the stream. The Sentinel drew in a deep breath and coughed as his nose and mouth were released, but that was all the movement from him for the next few minutes. Working together, Simon and Blair lifted Jim until his torso was all the way out of the water. Simon supported him against his chest as Blair began again, working up a lather with the rag and dripping the resulting suds over Jim's chest before brushing gently over them with the washcloth.

By the time they'd washed his chest and back and were working on his arms, Jim was starting to move around a bit, but for the most part he lay placid in the water, eyes closed. In the dim light there was no way to be sure if they were irritating or soothing the condition of Jim's skin, but Blair chose to believe Jim's calm acceptance of their ministrations meant they were helping. And hey, if nothing else, at least the man was numb. Blair's body had long since lost all feeling from the waist down, and he knew Simon must be numb as well, but neither man said anything more than was necessary to get the job done. A small crowd had gathered on the bank at one point, but a few growls from Simon had run off everyone but Rafe and a blanket-wrapped Henri.

Finished sudsing and rinsing all Jim's visible skin, Blair stopped, and brushed a few stray suds from the side of his nose. He looked at Jim for a moment, and then up at Simon.

"Okay, next thing is to get him out of those pants."

"You touch my pants and you die here, Sandburg."

It was weak, raspy, and he coughed twice before he got the sentence all the way out, but it was Jim's voice.

Blair's relief met Simon's above the white form stretched out beneath the water, then Blair smiled at his partner. Jim still hadn't opened his eyes.

"Welcome back, man. And hey, you'd have to catch me first. And right now with this impersonation you've got going of a beached, albino whale, well, hey, man, you're just not that awe-inspiring," Blair joked, and jumped at least half a foot out of the creek when a large white hand suddenly rose from the murky water and grasped his forearm. The glycerin soap popped out of his grip and bobbed away down the creek. Jim's eyes opened, and he grinned weakly up at his roommate.

Simon chuckled. "Definitely got him up above flood stage there, Jim. Maybe you should move away for a bit while the water around Detective Sandburg clears out," he said.

"Yeah well, who's the one who always tells me payback's a bitch, Jim?" Blair asked pointedly, reaching out to take Jim's arm as he struggled to stand. Jim made it to his feet, but he didn't straighten up. Instead he remained hunched over like an old man, leaning against Simon. Blair pulled his hand away and saw the angry red print of his fingers on the large welt that covered most of Jim's arm.

"Jim?" he asked, and watched in concern as his friend shivered, staring down at the creek. Simon hadn't moved, except to put an arm around Jim's back to support him, and Blair saw his own worry reflected in the Captain's eyes. Jim coughed, shivered again, and finally met Blair's gaze.

"Better, Chief," he whispered hoarsely, "But if it's all right with the Captain here, I think I'd like to go home." "I don't believe that will be a problem, Jim." Simon's deep voice could be profoundly gentle. "And you'd better take Sandburg with you before they decide to arrest him for polluting the creek."

That comment won a ghostly smile from the Sentinel, but the smile didn't last long, eclipsed by another shuddering cough. Damn, they needed to get the man out of here before he caught pneumonia.

"Okay, man, but I *am* checking your pants before we go anywhere," Blair insisted. "They were pretty saturated with gasoline." Jim's lack of response to that worried Blair more than he cared to admit, but he didn't say anything, just bent over and ran his hands along the sides of Jim's khakis while the Sentinel shivered and leaned against Simon. The thin material appeared free of the oily film of gasoline, and Blair breathed a silent thanks as he stood. Reaching for Jim's arm, he added a plea for forgiveness to his quiet prayer. But surely the forest understood; protecting the Protector had to be an acceptable excuse for temporarily polluting the creek.

It took Simon and Blair's combined efforts to get Jim up the sloping bank to where Rafe and Henri waited, more blankets and Jim's own towel in hand. As they wrapped Jim in the large towel from his duffel bag, Henri dropped a blanket over Simon's shoulders and Rafe grabbed another one for Blair. Blair surrendered his place at Jim's side to Henri, and reached for first aid kit and the flashlight before following them to a nearby fallen log where Jim's sleeping bag had been laid out. Rafe grabbed a thermos and a couple of cups from the ground by his feet before following them.

"Hey, brother. Hell of a night." Henri said, and Jim's reply was an unintelligible mumble as he lowered himself wearily to sit on the sleeping bag. Simon kept a steadying hand on his shoulder while they wrapped the bag around his legs. Blair squatted beside Simon and started sorting through the first aid kit. Accepting the cup of coffee Rafe poured, Simon knelt down in front of Jim and held it out.

"Drink this. You need something warm inside you."

Jim's hands were shaking so bad when he reached out for the cup that Simon simply held onto it, lifting the cup to Jim's lips. Blair held out two aspirin tablets, and Simon took them, gently feeding them to Jim one at a time, followed by sips of hot coffee. Finally, Jim pushed the cup away, capturing Simon's arm with the same hand. His eyes on Blair, Jim directed his question to Simon.

"He okay?"

Blair looked up to find both men gazing fixedly at him. His hands stilled for a moment, then he rolled his eyes and went back to digging through the first aid kit. Sentinels. Shit. Here the man was practically Sentinel-ka-bobs, thanks to his partner, Blair himself, and yet he's worried about said partner getting a little bonk on the head? The man needed to get his priorities straight. Simon sent a crooked smile Blair's way before answering Jim.

"Ellison, if you don't know by now how hard Sandburg's head is," he said, handing the half-empty coffee cup to Henri and accepting a full one from Rafe. "He's supposed to go see his own doctor later today, to be sure his marbles are all still there, but as far as we can tell he's been his normal delusional self."

JIm didn't say anything to that, and Blair didn't look up to see if he was still under the Sentinel microscope. Finally he found what he wanted in the first aid kit. Gathering the items, he waved away the coffee Rafe was offering to him to tap Simon's shoulder. Blair moved in when the captain stood, a small bottle with a dropper lid and a purple tube in his hands. Crouching next to Jim, he began to unscrew the dropper lid.

Simon watched for a moment, clutching his own blanket around his shoulders and sipping his coffee, Then his attention shifted from his injured detecitve, up to the gravel pit, where lights flashed and many voices babbled. Following his Captain's gaze, Henri spoke up.

"Rafferty requested an ambulance, paramedics just got here. Joel called, we've got three units here to take the 'Brat Pack' in to booking. He's riding back with the punks from the farmhouse in one; Megan's on her way down here with the others. Rafferty just wants to talk to you before he signs off on the whole gig."

"All right, I'll go on up there in a min--"

"No." Jim's monosyllabic comment interrupted Simon, and he turned toward his detective, frowning. Blair looked up from the dropper he was filling.

"He's right, Simon."

Simon stared at Blair, and then back at Jim, before shaking his head.

"Right about what? 'No,' what? You know, it really plays hell with my image as the in-charge Captain here when I get turned down for something and I don't even know what that something is!"

Blair resisted the urge to grin at Simon's histrionics, and Henri and Rafe weren't even bothering to hide their relieved grins. At last, something about this hellish night was getting back to normal. Jim, staring down at nothing once he'd made his objection known, seemed oblivious to the whole thing. Blair took a deep breath, and explained.

"No ambulance. What Jim really needs right now is just to go home. All the hospital is gonna do is aggravate his sen--his allergies. He'll be better off--"

Simon waved a hand and cut off Blair's words. He knelt in front of Jim, and waited until the detective looked up at him.

"Jim? You're sure?" he asked softly.

Bloodshot blue eyes in a swollen and bruised face stared up at Simon, and then Jim nodded. Simon didn't hesitate.

"Okay, good enough for me. Rafe, you get on the horn and tell Connor to turn around and go back up to where we left our cars. She can bring her car down here and give Ellison and Sandburg a ride home while we finish cleaning up this mess. Henri, you come with me while I go make nice with Rafferty so the County doesn't decide they get first crack at our perps."

With that, Simon drained his coffee cup and handed it to Henri as well. He pulled the blanket from his shoulders and draped it over one arm before turning and heading up the hill. Rafe and Henri stared blankly at each other for a second, then, looking down at Jim and Blair, Rafe cleared his throat.

"Jim..." he started, and then Henri caught his arm, indicating the route Simon had taken with a sideways nod of his head. Rafe nodded, and they turned to go.

"Hey, H, Rafe..." Jim's rasp caught their attention, and he looked up and smiled at them. It wasn't much of a smile, and would probably have frightened more people than it reassured. But Henri's face lit up with his answering smile and Rafe looked even younger than he normally did with the huge grin that he now sported. Jim swallowed, then said, "Thanks, guys, for coming after me."

"Hey, Bro, it was nothing. Besides, somebody had to protect the perps from Sandburg. That poor kid would never have known what hit him." Jim looked askance at Blair, who smiled and shrugged. Henri laughed, and slapped Rafe on the shoulder. "Come on partner, I think Simon gave you an order."

"Yeah." Rafe smiled at Jim again, and then turned to follow his partner up the incline and back to the action.

"Here, Jim, open your mouth." Blair held the dropper he'd filled, and Jim obediently opened his mouth, jerking away just before the dropper reached his mouth. His glare wasn't up to its normal strength, but it was a glare nonetheless.

"This doesn't have any relatives in the peyote family, does it?"

"No, it's plain ol' store bought Benedryl. It will help get rid of the hives." Jim accepted that, and took the medicine, before he frowned.

"Chief, my senses are already sho--"

"It's infant's Benedryl, Jim. The dose should be small enough to give you some relief and not affect your senses. It's either that or take you in for a shot of adrenaline to get rid of them. Trust me, you don't want hives to go internal."

Jim shuddered at that, and Blair quickly pulled the blanket from his own shoulders to drape it around him, making sure the towel protected Jim's skin from any contact with the blanket. Now to get the Sentinel into something warmer before they added hypothermia to the night's problems. Digging in the duffel bag Rafe had dropped next to him, Blair brought out a sweatshirt. Another second of digging netted him a pair of Jim's sweatpants. Pushing the duffel bag aside, he turned back to Jim, holding the shirt out to him.

"Look, Jim, I was serious about getting you out of those wet clothes. The cold water helped the hives, but if you start shivering and get too chilled, they'll take off again. We need to get you warm and dry."

He leaned forward, reaching for the blanket Simon had draped around Jim, but Jim shook his head, and batted weakly with at Blair's hand. Blair sat back on his heels while Jim coughed, and then tried to pin him with another pale imitation of his normally icy stare.

"I'm fine, and I'll get even colder changing out here in the open," he rasped. "Besides, you're just as wet as I am, Chief."

Blair tried not to shiver as Jim's words reminded him of just how cold he was now that they were in the cool night air. He held the sweats up in front of Jim.

"Well, hey, Jim, you're the anal Boy Scout here--what's the sense in always being prepared if you don't make use of those preparations? Besides, you're the one who spent the last fifteen minutes totally submerged in 50-degree water. I'll be fine once we get inside a nice warm car. You, on the other hand--"

"Detective Ellison?"

Blair shot to his feet, and, turning around, found himself facing the same two paramedics that had tended him in the loft. What the--oh, that's right, Rafferty had called for help. Shoot, how could he get rid of them? Jim really did *not* need their poking and prodding at this point. Blair stared at the two men for a second before swallowing and laughing once.

"Whoa, hey, Johnny and Roy, take two."

Short, blonde and pudgy glared at him, while his dark-haired partner shoved past Blair to kneel beside Jim, Jim who sneezed and flinched away from the man. Sniffing experimentally, Blair realized the dark-haired EMT exuded a faint but rank odor, some kind of aftershave or something. Shit, one more thing Jim shouldn't have to be dealing with! When he turned towards Jim, however, Blair found his way blocked by the blonde EMT, who started pushing him back, away from Jim.

"Look, Mr. Sandburg, why don't you just step aside and get out of the way so we *professionals* can do our jobs?"

"Hey, now, wait a minute, folks, like this is so not going to down like this," he objected, shaking off the EMT's grip. "Jim's got some severe medical allergies, and you can't just go giving him whatever treatment you please. Let's get some ground rules down here, first, okay?"

Blonde and pudgy blocked his next move towards Jim, while his partner opened up the medical box and started pulling out equipment.

"Where's his medical tag, then? " Pudgy questioned. Taking Blair's arm, he once again tried to lead him away from Jim.

Blair forgot his retort when he saw what the dark-haired paramedic held as he leaned over Jim. Jim had raised one hand to object, but the EMT was pushing both Jim's hand and his objection aside.

"Hey!" Blair lunged past Pudgy and grabbed the penlight before the idiot could actually turn it on. The dark-haired EMT fell back on his heels, while Pudgy glared at him. Blair stood between Jim and the paramedics, waving the penlight back and forth between the two men like he'd been taught to use his gun.

"Now look, no one has given you pinheads permission to treat anyone here. You're not going to shine any little lights or take anybody's blood pressure or so much as offer a tissue, until I say you get to; have you got that? You guys can just back off until we get some ground rules established, like I said before." He lowered the penlight, and looked down at Jim. He could swear the Sentinel was smiling, but in the strange pattern of light and shadow that filtered through the trees and vehicles to where they sat, it was hard to be sure.

Short-and-Pudgy rolled his eyes, and leaned around Blair to speak to Jim, still huddled against the log.

"Sir? You're in need of some assistance here and this person--"

Jim looked up to meet the EMT's worried gaze, and this time he managed to get some of the normal wattage into the Ellison ice-down glare.

"You heard my partner," he said hoarsely.

Pudgy and his partner gaped at each other in disbelief, then looked back up at Blair, who honestly tried not to gloat too hard.

Well, sort of. Blair didn't bother to waste a smile on the duo. He nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, well, okay. Like I said, ground rules. No lights, no blood pressure cuffs, no medication. You get to treat and bandage Jim's cuts and the two bullet scrapes, using the ointment I will give you. In return," Blair hesitated, and then grinned as inspiration struck. "In return, you let him use your ambulance to change clothes. That's the deal, folks, take it or leave it."

They took it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One more forever of fifteen minutes later, Blair was waiting outside the ambulance where a decidedly cranky Jim had retired, insisting he'd been capable of changing his own clothes since he was two years old.

"Yeah, and your Batman underwear was probably starched then, too," Blair muttered, pacing anxiously at the end of the ambulance. Movement nearby caught his eye, and suddenly he stilled, and then felt an immense, icy calm settle over him. Eyes narrowed, he stared at Rafe and Henri, their assistance less than gentle as they ushered Derek towards a Cascade Police cruiser. The decision was made before he even thought about it, and the two detectives hauled Derek up short when Blair appeared directly in front of them. A satisfied smirk lurking beneath the anger that pervaded the atmosphere around the two detectives, Rafe stared at Derek. Frowning, Henri opened his mouth as if to say something, but instead shot a quick glance over his shoulder towards the other side of the quarry. There, back to them and cigar waving, Simon exchanged war stories with Rafferty, all in the interest of interdepartmental goodwill. His captain suitably distracted, Henri shrugged and then turned back to Blair, evidently willing to wait for whatever Blair had to say.

Blair saw and dismissed his fellow detective's concern. He didn't care about anything right now, except for the fact that the man taking forever to change his clothes in the ambulance was still alive.

No thanks to the punk leering at him now, nor to his punk friend, already packed into a nearby cruiser and awaiting his ride with the same dead calm with which he'd faced the entire evening.

"Whatsa matter, Sandburg?" Derek sneered. "Poor detective got his feelings hurt 'cause I didn't want to grow up to be a sweet little momma's boy like you?"

Blair stared quietly at Derek, long enough that the boy's sneer faltered, and then faded. Licking his lips, with a sideways glance at the two detectives bracketing him from the rear, Derek straightened up and tried again.

"You ain't got no balls, have you, Detective? You nev--"

Blair had Derek by the shirt collar and slammed up against the police cruiser almost before he himself knew what he was doing. Lying sideways against the car, Derek was scrabbling ineffectively for purchase in the gravel, but at the sight of Blair over him, fist cocked back for maximum effect, the boy visibly wilted. Tight-lipped, Rafe put a hand out to stop Henri's movement towards them, but Blair had eyes for no one but the boy in his grip.

Why shouldn't he? Jim pulled this kind of shit regularly and got away with it. Derek certainly deserved it, and more, and there was no guarantee the justice system itself would see to it that the boy was punished, so why shouldn't Blair? He let his anger fill him, possess him, breathed air in and rage out, knew that his eyes were promising Derek the murder the boy had failed to deliver on Jim. Feeding on the boy's fear, his ego swelled with the rage, and Blair knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had the right to do this, he had the right to do *at least* this.

Why shouldn't he?

Blair stared into Derek's increasingly fearful gaze for another long moment, before he let his arm drop. Grabbing Derek by the shirt front again, he pulled him to his feet and then shoved him back into Henri's arms. Wide-eyed, Derek was still staring at him as Rafe reached out and grabbed him by the back of his collar. Blair met Derek's gaze for a moment, the murderous rage still in the forefront of his mind.

"You're not worth it," he said bitterly, feeling the rage deflate a little. "You never have been worth it--any of it." Turning his back on the trio as Rafe reached for a door handle, Blair closed his eyes. Gee, guess he just got a whole new education on what Jim's admonition to "Check your emotions at the door" meant. Jim used his rage when he needed to, yeah, but there was a big difference between using something and being consumed by it. A *huge* difference.

Shivering, Blair gathered the murderous rage up with a deep breath through his nose, and then exhaled both air and emotion. He did it again, and again, and again. No, Derek hadn't been worth it. Jim had known the boy was undeserving; Jim had seen it from the first. Convinced of his own omnipotence, Blair had refused to listen, and this evening was the fruit of his blind ambition to prove himself unchanged. Well, never again. Blair Sandburg might make a mistake once, or even twice, but such a monumental mistake as this, never. Once was the absolute limit this time.

With one last deep breath, in and out, Blair opened his eyes and turned back to the ambulance. He started, and then swore before taking off at a run towards the vehicle. Jim hung onto the open door, staring through the half-lit night at Blair. His skin still marred with the red and white pattern of hives and rash, bloodshot eyes, bruises shading to dark red and purple stark beneath his swollen skin, Jim looked like hell. But, all things considered, he looked better than he had when Blair and the cavalry had first arrived on the scene.

He looked alive.

Gravel rattled beneath his feet as Blair skidded to a stop beside the man, one hand out to assist Jim as he let go of the door and attempted to stand on his own.

"Man, you should have called me!" he scolded. Jim's answering smile didn't reach much beyond his eyes, but it was undeniable. Ignoring Blair's hand for the moment, he stood on his own. Well, okay, that was a serious list the man had there, to about say 70 degrees, but hey, he did it.

"You were a bit busy there, Chief," Jim said, and Blair fought the urge to laugh out loud at the near normal volume of Jim's voice. Taking the arm Jim didn't quite offer him, Blair settled it across his shoulders, and hurried to wrap his other arm around Jim's waist before the man collapsed under his own weight. Megan materialized out the shadows beside her car as they turned towards it.

"Yeah, well, I think it's time to go home, man, definitely time to head for home," Blair said.

Jim didn't answer, but he smiled another one of those thin smiles. Then he leaned on Blair all the way to the car.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"...sure, Sheila. I'll tell him...No, no, I don't know...Yeah...okay, I'll make sure he gets the message. Okay, sure. You're welcome."

Settling the receiver precisely in its cradle, Jim stared thoughtfully at the phone for a few minutes. The Friday afternoon babble of the bullpen washed over him; at a time when most offices were winding down and getting ready to shut down for the weekend, Cascade P.D. was getting wound up. There was a Jags exhibition game this weekend, not to mention numerous high school sporting events, an R & B Festival at Rainier, an arts and craft fair at the Waterfront--among other things. All in all the weekend promised to be a busy one for Cascade's finest. Fortunately, Jim was still on desk duty until his doctor cleared him, so he could look forward to attending the weekend events as just a spectator.

Mulling the phone call over, Jim absently rubbed on hand across his forehead, and winced a second later. Though the cuts from his weekend adventure had healed remarkably quickly, they were still tender. Yesterday had been his first day back at work after his ordeal, and he hated to admit just how tired and sore he yet was.

Getting back to the loft in the wee hours of the night Saturday had only been the first step. They'd sacrificed a whole lot more Benedryl and a couple of oatmeal baths to get his hives under control. Both he and Sandburg were exhausted by the time the rash had finally faded to something resembling a bad sunburn, late Sunday evening. Through it all, despite Blair's coaching, Jim's sensory thresholds had remained way too high. As a result he'd spent all of Monday in bed with his sleeping shield and the white noise generators running, fighting a migraine. Sensory spikes had plagued him the next couple of days, and he was still fighting what Sandburg called phantom itching. Thursday, yesterday, sporting the dark blues and greens of old bruises, only now shading towards yellow in their last stages of healing, he'd insisted on coming in to work, ignoring Sandburg's muttered threats and snide comments about pigheaded, jaundiced Andorians. At least that's what he thought Blair had called him this morning. Jim hadn't been able to understand half of what his roommate had been grumbling about around his granola.

Speaking of Sandburg...Jim focused and concentrated for a minute, finally locating his partner in the elevator, flirting with the new secretary from Homicide. Well, as long as Blair remembered they had tickets to both the exhibition game tonight *and* the music festival tomorrow, Jim didn't care what plans he set up. Probably do Blair some good to get out on a date anyway, take his mind off the events of the last few days.

Though the way his roommate and Megan had been looking at each other lately, Blair had better have some good BS ready if the Inspector caught him flirting with another woman.

The elevator doors opened, disgorging Blair and assorted other personnel into the hallway. Jim dialed his hearing back down and tried to look busy, grabbing a pencil and opening the file that lay on his desk without looking to see what it was. He'd actually lied to Sheila; he figured he had a damned good idea of why Blair had left that note on her desk this morning. He just needed the right time and place to shake some sense back into his partner.

The odor of cigars wafted his way, and Jim sneezed. Damn, he hoped Simon decided he didn't like this particular brand of cigars and went back to the other ones. The man in question appeared in his office door, cigar clenched between his teeth, stretching his arms and surveying what had been called his private fiefdom with a small, secret smile. When Simon saw Sandburg navigating his way across the bullpen by sonar or whatever he used to avoid stationary objects when he was reading rather than watching where he was going, he grinned. Taking the cigar out of his mouth, Simon bellowed, "Sandburg!"

Blair, nose buried in whatever file he'd dug up from Forensics, didn't even jump. He looked up, smiled, and then snapped his folder closed before sauntering over to where Simon waited. Jim looked down at his desk, hiding his grin. Blair really ought to at least *act* scared of Simon, like most of the rest of the detectives in the unit did. Evidently Simon found Blair's nonchalant attitude less than acceptable as well, because he glowered at the smaller man for a moment before stepping back and motioning him into his office.

Jim didn't really try, he could just "hear" the conversation better than anyone else, especially since Simon didn't close the door. Something to do with Darryl and college...oh, the kid wanted Blair to write him. Okay, nothing for which he had to go defend Sandburg. Now the two men were discussing the upcoming exhibition game, with Simon bemoaning the fact that he had a prior commitment at some official City function and couldn't attend the game with them. Closing the folder he had yet to look at, he added it to the stack on the corner of his desk and smiled again. That was okay, the look on Blair's face when Connor joined them would be put a whole new spin on the evening's entertainment.

A shout of laughter over at Rafe's desk caught his attention, but the way Joel, H, and Megan were huddled there he couldn't see what it was Rafe held that so engrossed them. Oh well, he was sure to find out sooner or later--if not then Blair would and Jim could get it from him. Jim turned his attention back to Simon's office.

Okay, the conversation was winding down...Jim dropped his pencil. He stretched carefully, still favoring sore and healing muscles before standing up. He made it across the bullpen to Simon's office just as the two men inside came out. With a nod for Jim, Simon continued on out of the bullpen on some errand. Jim stopped Blair with a hand on his chest.

"Hey, Chief," he started, and Blair looked up from the folder he'd flipped open again.

"Jim, hey, I've got something here I want to show you, but not," Blair paused and looked around the room, before catching and holding Jim's eyes in a steady gaze, "Not here, man."

"Well, that's good, Chief, because I have something I want to talk to you about, too." Jim took Blair by the shoulders and turning him, gave him a gentle push back into Simon's office. Following Blair inside, he closed the door behind them and then stepped around Blair to lean back against the conference table, arms folded across his chest. Blair had stopped just inside the door, still looking at his report.

"Whatcha got, Chief?" May as well let the man get whatever it was off his chest first.

Blair looked up at him soberly, then tapped the paper Jim could barely see inside the folder with one finger.

"Serena's report on those cards H brought to poker night last week. See, it finally dawned on me that you didn't start acting like 'Macho Man' until *after* you'd shuffled and dealt the cards a few times, so I got the deck from the evidence room and had Serena run some tests on it. It took her awhile, but she finally found something."

Blair continued to read while Jim waited. When his roommate didn't offer anything more, he prompted, "Which was?"

Looking up, Blair hesitated, and then came over to stand beside Jim, holding the folder out and pointing at one line.

"Cocaine, Jim. It was cocaine. Just a faint residue, barely registered on her tests. I made her run the most sensitive test she had, and the most comprehensive."

"Cocaine? On a deck of cards?" Jim took the folder from Blair, and read the words for himself. Blair paced a couple of steps away, staring out the window, arms crossed and chewing on his lower lip, obviously thinking hard.

"Well, they're from a casino, right?" He turned and waved at the folder Jim held, before meeting Jim's gaze. "My guess would be that someone used them to line out cocaine before they were thrown into the recycling bin or whatever it is that they put the cards in that they sell." With that observation Blair put his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. Jim rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"So that would explain why my senses were so out of control--"

"And it also explains why you were betting like a fool and probably at least part of why you were making like G.I Joe with a major 'tude' when Derek showed up." Blair stepped forward, one hand out now and waving in the air as he spoke. "If nothing else had happened after we got your senses all dialed down you'd have probably gotten it out of your system and been fine. Slept it off or something. With everything else that went down that night, well..." Blair's voice trailed off, and he shrugged, looking away from Jim, out the window.

Jim sighed. Blair was carrying way too much guilt for those events, especially considering the phone call he'd just taken from Sheila Armstrong, head of the Mentors Program. He carefully shut the folder and placed it on the table beside him, lining the manilla up carefully with the edge of the table while he considered his next words. Finally he looked up. Blair was still staring out the window.

"Blair, why did you resign from the Mentors Program?" Still fingering the folder, Jim spoke softly, but from the way Blair jumped he might as well have yelled at the man. After that Blair didn't move, just stared out the window, utterly, absolutely still.

That's okay, Jim could do patient. He could wait--for a little while. Finally, Blair turned to face Jim, his eyes wide.

"How'd you--"

Jim gave up on the folder, and just focused on his partner.

"Sheila called while you were down in Forensics, and your phone still forwards to me when you don't pick up." He settled against the table, hands down at his side. Blair smiled mirthlessly before turning back to the window.

"Ah. You'd think they'd have that changed by now," Blair spoke to the window. "Bureaucracy. You gotta love it, man."

Jim sighed, and walked over behind Blair, one hand reaching out but not quite touching his partner.

"Blair, you can't let what happened with Derek--"

Blair's fury cut off his words. Whirling to face Jim, Blair growled, "Can't I? Jim, he almost killed you! You were practically barbecued pig! When I think about what could have happened if we'd been two minutes later..." Blair blinked, swallowed, and turned his face away. Arms crossed against his chest, Jim waited, and eventually Blair looked at him again. "The real clincher is that if I had listened to you in the first place, this never would have happened, he never would have come to our apartment and never gotten his hands on you and--"

"And we'd still have two families wondering what happened to their loved ones. And probably never finding out what did happen to them." Jim pointed out reasonably.

Blair stared at him, then shook his head. Hands in his pockets, he choked out a laugh.

"Yeah, well, you know I just can't see where finding out your uncle was murdered for kicks, or your runaway daughter, would be a good thing. Even if the man was a homeless bum, that still has to sting. I really doubt that's exactly the kind of news those families were hoping for, you know what I mean?"

Jim shook his head. He'd been there, done that. He knew what no news of a loved one was like, even if it was from the side of the missing person and not the family back at home anxiously waiting for news.

"But it's better than no news, Chief," he insisted.

Blair didn't have anything to say to that, he just shrugged, and looked away, reaching out to run his hand over the back of a nearby chair. Jim found himself waiting again, waiting for Blair to get down to it, the real reason he was so torn up about what had happened with Derek. He thought he had a pretty good idea what was really bothering the young man, he just needed to see if Blair had found his way through the mass of emotion and physical exhaustion they'd been fighting this week to the same point.

Finally Sandburg took a deep breath and said, "Truth is, Jim, I was so set on proving that I ..."

"Hadn't become a jack-booted thug that you let your humanity get the upper hand on your common sense," Jim finished for him when Sandburg appeared unable to.

Blair gave him a wall-eyed look before focusing on the pattern he was tracing with one finger in the knotwork of the wooden chair.

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Not too smart, huh? Looks like I'm not a very good cop after all."

"Smart has nothing to do with it, Chief, because that's not what happened." Blair's hand stopped rubbing the chair, and Jim heard him swallow. Once again he waited, but Blair wasn't going to meet his gaze this time. Jim walked over to stand beside him. "Look, Blair, I've been through boot camp, and the Academy. I know how they mess with your head, what they try to do to you, change who you are--not to mention the years of training you got from Naomi about 'The Pigs.' Now you're not just working with them, you are one. It can sort of set a man back a bit."

Blair shook his head, still refusing to look at Jim. "Set a man back? It almost cost you your--"

"But the point is it didn't, Chief, and even if it had, it still wouldn't have been your fault! Look, the only ones responsible for what happened to me were Derek and Moe--the ones holding the lighter. You didn't have *anything* to do with that. And, truth be known, Derek surprised me, too. I knew he was up to no good, but I didn't have any idea he'd go that far. I missed it just as much as you did."

That got Blair's attention. Blue eyes warred with blue for a moment before Blair resorted to words again.

"But, Jim--"

"No buts, Chief." Jim shook his head firmly. "I meant what I said when I said you're the best cop I've ever worked with. That hasn't changed, at all. Look, you didn't need the Academy to make you a better cop, that was just protocol, hoops we had to jump through to get you a badge you already deserved, recognition you'd already earned. You were a good cop before you went to the Academy, and you haven't changed as much as you might think you have." Jim paused and smiled before finishing, "Otherwise I wouldn't have found half of Puget Sound on the bathroom floor this morning."

Blair didn't even crack a smile at the feeble joke, and Jim sighed. Putting one hand on the table, he leaned forward into his partner's personal space.

"Blair, you did *not* let your humanity get away from you here, at all. Part of what makes you such a good cop is that you see the other side, the potential of the person if they're given a chance. Just because Derek didn't live up to be the person you saw in him doesn't mean that the next kid won't, or the one after that." All Jim could see was the top of Blair's head, and he began to feel just a little bit desperate. Why wouldn't the man see reason? "Look, Blair, as much crap as I gave you about Derek, I was willing to wait and see if he'd have the guts to be what you were asking him to be. He didn't, and yeah, it got a little bit hot for me for a while there, but that's got *nothing* to do with you, or the decision you made to mentor him. This all goes on Derek's slate, Chief, *all* of it. Don't let one punk's decision screw up the chance you might be able to give some other kid."

Jim waited another long forever before Blair finally glanced sideways at him. His fingers busy tracing the knotwork again, Blair shrugged slightly. Still staring at the woodwork, he finally sighed.

"You really mean that, Jim?" This time Blair's gaze was steady, and Jim met it thankfully.

"Yeah, I do." He watched Blair take that thought, mull it over, then he reached out and put one hand on Blair's shoulder. "It will take time to get used to this, Blair, but it will work out, okay? Just don't try to be anything or anyone other than who you are. It's who you are that we value, not what they tried to teach you to be at the Academy."

They held each other's gaze for a moment before Blair smiled.

"Okay. Yeah. I think I can do that."

Jim clapped his shoulder once and stood up straight.

"Good, because I don't know about you, but I'm getting hungry."

"Hey, what do you say we try that new Hawaiian place--" Simon opened the door to his office and glowered around it at the two men.

"Since I was not informed of either of your promotions to Captain of Major Crimes, can I have my office back now?"

Blair grinned and moved adroitly around Jim, rescuing his folder from the table and heading for the door.

"Sure, Captain. I was just telling Jim about the forensics report on the cards from last week."

"Well, tell him the rest of it somewhere else!" Simon thundered, stepping inside the door and waving them out of the office. Jim ducked his head to hide his smile, and followed his partner out into the bullpen and back over to their desks.

"Oh, Chief, about tonight? I took the liberty of inviting--" Jim paused as across the bullpen heads were turning their direction, and a small crowd was drifting towards them. He shared a puzzled look with Blair as Rafe, Megan, Henri and Joel all gathered in front of his desk. Henri and Joel were openly grinning, Megan looked smug. Rafe was trying and failing miserably to keep a straight face. As the group shoved Rafe to the fore, Jim noticed the younger detective held a puzzlingly familiar purple tube in one hand. Beside him, Blair suddenly inhaled a sharp breath, and then sounded like he was choking--or trying not to laugh. Jim had time to cast one menacing glare at his sputtering roommate before Rafe spoke up.

"You forgot your breast cream, Jim," he blurted, before collapsing against Henri in a spate of laughter.

Jim frowned. What? Where had he seen that tube before? It looked vaguely familiar. Sandburg was backing away, and Jim reached back to grab his arm before he could get too far away. Blair made a half-hearted effort to extricate himself before giving up. Hands in his back pockets, he waited beside Jim with a definite air of...glee. What was going on here? Jim turned back to Rafe and that tube.

"Breast cream? Well, you know, that's not really my department, Rafe, why don't you ask--"

A glance at Connor and Jim stifled the rest of that comment. No sense pissing the woman off when he'd be spending the majority of the evening with her. He was trying to decide what to say next, when Connor spoke up.

"Actually, Jim, it fell out of your truck," she smirked, her arms crossed against her chest as her steady gaze dared him to finish his own statement. Unthinking, Jim reached for the purple tube.

"What? My truck? I don't have anything like this in my---"

"Yes, you do, Jim," Blair's voice calmly interrupted him. Jim turned to stare at his partner. Blair shared an amused glance with the rest of Major Crimes, before smiling up at Jim. "I put it in for you when you forgot it this morning."

Jim frowned. Wait a minute, he recognized this. It was the stuff Blair had been giving him all week for the cuts on his head and the bullet burns. Blair had kept it with him, dispensing the stuff to Jim two or three times a day. Jim had never asked, his experience when it came to dealing with Sandburg and his strange homeopathic remedies being that he was better off if he could honestly plead the Fifth. Blair had never handed this tube to Jim, just opened it and squeezed some of the thick yellow paste out for him to apply to his injuries. He turned the little tube over to read its label.

"'Lansinoh, for breastfeeding mothers'--Sandburg!"

Hands out in front of him, backing away as the entire bullpen erupted into laughter, Blair shook his head. "Hey, chill out, man. All it is is pure lanolin, and it has great antibiotic properties, not to mention a shelf life that won't quit, so I dropped it in the first aid kit in case we ever needed it. With your allergies..." Evidently considering himself a safe distance away, Blair stopped to shrug and grin. Jim shook the tube at him.

"You mean this stuff you've been giving me to put on my face all week is breast cream?"

Blair's smile slipped a little, and there was an expectant hush in the bullpen. He waved at the tube, as if that would make it go away.

"Hey, Naomi used it on my cuts and scrapes all the time. It really works, man. Chill out, okay?" Blair's eyes had a deadly gleam in them. "Besides, you never know, you being such a tough guy and all, I thought it might help you, you know, get in touch with your more sensitive, you know, your feminine side."

The bullpen dissolved into hysteria, and Blair's grin grew. Jim stood there shaking the purple tube at Sandburg and trying to hold his glower, until the laughter had run its course. As everyone headed back to their respective jobs, he threw the tube to Blair, who barely caught it. Shaking his head and glaring at a few of the more daring commentators, Jim turned his back on his grinning Guide and reached for his jacket.

Megan was just turning away as he shrugged into his coat. Okay, time to get some of his own back. Blair joined him, his own coat in hand and stowing the purple tube in one pocket. Jim smiled at Blair, who suddenly looked worried.

"Hey, Connor?" he called, and watched Blair's confusion grow. Oh, this was going to be *so* worth it. Even the damn breast cream couldn't top this one. He favored Blair with a tiny smirk as Megan turned around, her eyebrows raised questioningly.

Jim zipped his coat before answering her. Then he turned and gave her his own full-wattage Ellison grin.

"We thought we'd get something to eat before the game. You up for Hawaiian?" he asked and his grin turned to a smirk as Blair's jaw just about hit the floor.

Megan gave Blair a strange look, then nodded at Jim.

"Sounds grand. Just, ah, let me grab my coat and pocketbook." She smiled at them, and started towards her desk.

"Oh, don't worry about that, Connor," Jim said, smiling serenely at Blair before looking back at Megan. "I heard Sandburg's paying tonight."

Blair's initial embarrassment quickly faded to shock, and he glared at Jim, before he caught Megan's enquiring gaze. Shooting another murderous glance at Jim, he smiled at her.

"Sure, why not." Megan nodded happily, and headed across the room to gather her things. Blair turned on Jim, "Considering I didn't even know she was coming," he muttered.

Jim just smirked some more and pulled his Jags cap from one pocket. He put it on and adjusted it before answering Blair. "Well, I wasn't about to let a perfectly good ticket go to waste. Just call it a bonding experience, Chief. You know, partners and all."

Blair stared wide-eyed at him, and then he made a disgusted face at Jim before shrugging into his own jacket. A new one Jim had found for him when, in spite of everything, cabin fever had driven him out of the house Wednesday afternoon. Blair was still muttering as Jim shut down his computer and locked up his desk.

"Man, I knew you took that breast cream thing too well, I knew you had to have something up your sleeve. Just remember, payback's a bitch, Jim. I for one would have appreciated *some* warning before having a surprise like this sprun--Oh, Megan, you're ready already?"

Jim grinned, and looked up as Megan joined them, her jacket over one arm and a small purse dangling from her hand. She gave them each a strange look, but Jim was knew he was good--*very* good--at looking innocent when he wanted to.

"You ready?" he asked, and she nodded, frowning at Sandburg who was doing his best to look calm, cool and collected. It wasn't working. Jim bit back another smile, and said, "Good. C'mon, Tonto, let's go. I for one do not want to be late for the game."